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THE 

CAREER OF COLUMBUS 



BY 

CHARLES ELTON, M. R 



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NEW YORK 




CASSELL 


PUBLISHING 


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104 


& 10.6 Fourth Avenue. 



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Copyright, 1892, by 
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

All rights reserved. 



THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



THE 

CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

" Here and there on sandy beaches 
A milky-belled amaryllis blew. 
How young Columbus seemed to rove 
Yet present in his natal grove. 
Now watching high on mountain cornice, . 
And steering now from a purple cove." 

"Christopher Columbus of famous mem- 
ory," when he began to acquaint the world with 
his plans, "was not only derided and generally 
mocked, even here in England, but afterward 
became a laughing-stock to the Spaniards them- 
selves." So ran the report of Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, that valiant and worthy gentleman, when 
new discoveries were being planned ; and he 
added that the whole scheme of Columbus was 
accounted "a fantastical imagination and a 
drowsie dreame." 



2 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Moreover, while the admiral was attending 
the king and queen in Castile, in how many ways 
was he not put to shame. "Some scorned the 
wildness of his garments, some took occasion to 
jest at his simple looks, others asked 'if this were 
he that louts so low, that took upon him to bring 
men into a country that aboundeth with gold, 
pearle, and precious stones?' 'Nay!' they said, 
'but if he were such a man, he would look some- 
what loftier, and carry another kind of counte- 
nance.' Thus some judged him by his garments, 
and others by his look and countenance; but 
none entered into the consideration of the inward 
man." 

A sudden turn of fortune brought wealth and 
honor to the poor exile who had been jeered at 
as one of the "vain and deceitful Ligurians," 
hardly endured by the cold-tempered king, a 
boaster tolerated only by the queen's kindness. 
When the cross was raised over Granada, and the 
King Chiquito was bewailing his fate to his 
Moorish ladies, the patient inventor had his share 
of luck with the rest. Genoa had refused his 
gifts, and Portugal had endeavored to rob him ; 
France and England were hesitating and faint in 
their offers. The victory of the Catholic kings 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 3 

disposed them to make a slight effort toward a 
greater success. There was a seaport in Spain 
which lay at the mercy of the crown for defaults 
in dues and services ; and many of its inhabitants 
were either convicted of crime or were held liable 
to exemplary punishment. The penalty was laid 
upon them of finding ships and men for the new 
voyage to Cathay, to sail into death and chaos, 
as their neighbors thought, and to expend them- 
selves in a wicked and desperate adventure; to 
sail beyond the sunset, as Columbus hoped, to 
the great city of Cambalu and its golden moun- 
tains, to the rivers that flowed from Paradise and 
the riches of the land of Havilah. 

Nothing could be more unjust than the attacks 
which had been made upon Columbus. Writing 
to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1501 he said, "It is 
now forty years that I have been sailing to all 
the countries at present frequented." He had 
conversed with scholars from all parts, "Latins, 
Greeks, Indians, and Moors." He had been 
very skillful in navigation, "knowing enough in 
astronomy," and well versed in geometry and 
mathematics. "During all this time I have seen, 
or endeavored to see, all books of cosmography, 
history, philosophy, and other sciences; so that 



4 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

our Lord has sensibly opened my understanding, 
to the end that I n:iight sail from here to the 
Indies, and made me most willing to put it into 
execution. Filled with this desire I came to 
your highnesses. All that heard of my under- 
taking rejected it with contempt and scorn. In 
your highnesses alone faith and constancy held 
their seat." He had, in fact, a strong sense of 
personal dignity. Pride kept him on a level with 
the kings who were discussing or patronizing his 
plans, and he would never abate a jot of the hon- 
ors to which he conceived himself to be entitled. 
It was his natural courtesy and sweetness of tem- 
per that had been mistaken for servility. 

After his great success he seems to have been 
reticent about his early life, though he would ex- 
plain a doubt or difficulty by referring to his 
stores of experience. Even to his son Don Fer- 
dinand, who afterward wrote his life, he spoke 
very briefly about their family affairs. "I and 
mine," he would say, "were always traders by 
sea"; and on another occasion he wrote, "I was 
not the first admiral in our family." "Of his 
voyages to the east and west," says the biogra- 
pher, "and many other things about his early 
days, I have no perfect knowledge, because he 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 



5 



died when I was confined by my filial duty, and 
had not the boldness to ask him to give me an 
account of them, or (to speak the truth), being 
but young, I was at that time far from being 
troubled with such thoughts." It happened for 
these reasons that the first part of the biography 
was somewhat blurred and indistinct ; we have to 
infer from a casual remark, or a formality in a 
legal document ; how Columbus passed his youth 
and early manhood, how he traded and fought 
and explored in the Levant, or among the Atlan- 
tic Islands ; how he came to the Torrid Zone at 
"St. George of the Gold Mine" in Guinea, or 
sailed within the Arctic Circle "a hundred 
leagues beyond Thule." 

It was of importance at one time to discover 
the exact place of his birth and the social stand- 
ing of his family, although his son very sensibly 
remarked that he was personally indifferent 
whether the admiral's father was a merchant, or 
a man of quality that kept his hawks and hounds; 
"and certainly there have been a thousand such 
in all parts, whose memory has been utterly lost 
in a very short time among their neighbors and 
kindred." He thought, however, that his fath- 
er's merits should have saved him from being 



/ 



/ 



^-.: 



6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

classed among mechanics. It must have been 
generally known that the admiral's father was a 
tradesman, a Genoese weaver; at one time, per- 
haps, the owner of a trading vessel, at another 
keeping an inn at Savona. But when Giustiniani 
said that Columbus was of a "poor and humble 
stock," in his note upon the nineteenth Psalm, 
Don Ferdinand was ready at once with a fierce 
contradiction. The facts might be true, he 
argued, but the implication was false. The ad- 
miral belonged to no humble tribe or class of 
handicraftsmen. One ought to say rather that 
the Columbi were of the best blood, a caste of 
soldiers and statesmen, reduced, no doubt, in the 
civil wars and by the peevishness of fortune into 
somewhat humble circumstances. How indeli- 
catie was the style of this base scribe, quite unac- 
quainted, evidently, with the courtesies of litera- 
ture. He might have said, as authors generally 
do in such cases, that the admiral's relations were 
poor and his surroundings lowly, without bring- 
ing in such blunt and injurious phrases. It is not 
easy to follow all the arguments which were 
adduced to support the admiral's dignity. One 
can understand the minute patriotism which 
seeks to connect a particular town with the life of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 7 

the discoverer of America, but it is strange that a 
man's reputation should have fallen or risen 
according to the merits of his birthplace. Yet 
we are assured that those were most respected 
who were born in places of importance, and this 
as a matter of genuine sentiment, and not merely 
because it is useful to be "the citizen of no mean 
city." 

"It happens," said Don Ferdinand, "that some 
who wish to cast a cloud on his fame will say, 
'He was of Nervi,' and others, 'He was of Cogo- 
letto,' or 'of Bogliasco,' which are all little places 
near Genoa, and upon the adjoining coast. Oth- 
ers again say, by way of exalting him, 'He was of 
Savona,' or 'a citizen of Genoa.' Some have 
soared higher still, and have made him out to 
belong to Piacenza, where there are indeed some 
honorable persons of his family, and tombs with 
the arms and inscriptions of the Columbi." So 
again we read in the Eulogies of Paolo Giovio, 
with reference to the Como portrait: "How one 
must wonder that a man of such fine presence 
and such commanding intellect should have been 
born in a rude hamlet like Albisola!" If it is 
asked whether the true birthplace is known, or 
whether all these places are like the cities which 



8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

strove in vain for Homer, the answer must be 
that Columbus probably knew the facts, and that 
he claimed to have been born in Genoa. Twice 
in his last will he makes the assertion ; he calls 
himself "nacido in Genova," and charged his 
estate with the maintenance in that city of some 
member of his family, to represent his memory 
there, and to take footing and root as a native, 
"because thence I came and there was I born." 
Columbus was born in 1445, or in the following 
year. His parents had a residence about that 
time in Quinto, but there is reason to believe 
that they had a house in Genoa, which they vis- 
ited from time to time before they took up their 
permanent abode, about the year 145 1, in the 
weavers' quarter near St. Andrew's Gate. 

Modern inquiry has cleared up the controver- 
sies about the original home of the family. A 
vast inheritance and splendid dignities lay vacant 
when the admiral's direct male issue came to an 
end in the fourth generation, A host of compet- 
itors, of course, appeared before the Spanish 
tribunals, provided for the most part with false 
pedigrees and sham traditions, desiring to prove 
heirship by showing that they came from places 
where the family had been established. The 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 9 

pleadings in the great lawsuit, which are still pre- 
served, show that several of the claimants went so 
far as to trace their titles to persons with the 
same name as the admiral's father ; alleged, more- 
over, in each case to have had sons with names 
exactly answering to those of the admiral and his 
brothers. The mere similarity of a family sur- 
name would not have carried them far. The 
name "Colombo," with slight local variations, 
was common in Fra.nce and Italy. It occurred 
in Spain and in Corsica, and was not unknown in 
England. It may easily have been derived inde- 
pendently in different places from some common 
word like "Colonus." 

The claim of Cugureo, now called Cogoletto, 
to be the true home of the family was long 
accepted as genuine. This, no doubt, was owing 
to the local traditions about an old house in the 
village, shown as one of the numerous residences 
ascribed to Columbus. The evidence in reality 
goes all the other way. Don Ferdinand tells us 
that he visited the place in the hope of getting 
information about his father, "As I passed 
through Cugureo I tried to learn something from 
two brothers there who were of the family of the 
Colombi ; they were among the richest people in 



lo THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

those parts, and were said to be related to the 
admiral, but the younger of the two was over a 
hundred years old, and so they could give me no 
account of the matter." While the lawsuit was 
pending, in 1583, a poor peasant named Bernardo 
Colombo came from Cogoletto to put in a claim 
to the title. His title rested upon a supposed 
relationship to a certain Domenico Colombo of 
that town, alleged to have been the admiral's 
father; but, though he was strongly supported 
by the republic of Genoa, his claim was rejected 
for want of proof. Baldassare Colombo, of Cuc- 
caro, claimed through another Domenico, lord of 
a castle at that place, who was also set up 
as "the father of Christopher Columbus." But, 
though the names in his pedigree were cor- 
rect, it came out that this ancestor had died in 
1456, nearly thirty years before the admiral's 
father, Domenico Colombo the weaver, was 
known to have died. The rejection of these 
claims disposed of the assertions that the family 
had come to Cogoletto or Cuccaro from Piacenza, 
or had moved down in more ancient times from 
Montferrat. There was, however, another title 
set up for the Columbi of Piacenza. Some of 
t;hem had been established iri Genoa as early a? 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS II 

the thirteenth century; and it was said that an 
important document, dated in 1481, distinctly 
stated that Domenico Colombo of Piacenza had 
two sons, Christopher and Bartholomew, who had 
migrated to Genoa about ten years before that 
time, and had sailed away afterward "to islands 
unknown." This document was never produced, 
and the claim was rejected for that reason. It 
was also observed that the arms on the houses 
and tombs of the Colombi at Piacenza were dif- 
ferent to those which were used by Columbus 
himself. It had been suggested that the admiral 
could have inherited no coat-of-arms, because his 
relations were merely craftsmen ; and it is quite 
true that his family had not, and perhaps could 
not legally have had, any place on the roll of the 
nobles of Genoa. But, after all, we must attach 
impo-rtance to the assertions of the admiral about 
his own affairs. The weaver's son may have 
been entitled to a heraldic coat which he put 
away while he tended the loom, as the noble in 
the story takes his sword from under the counter 
and untucks it when he has made his fortune. 
The arms of the family at Piacenza were of the 
emblematic or "speaking" kind, the surname 
being symbolized by three doves. When Colum-^ 



12 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

bus returned from his first voyage he was told to 
meet the Spanish kings-at-arms, that they might 
prepare the proper augmentations for the arms 
which he usually bore. The well known shield 
was blazoned under his personal direction, with 
the royal quarterings of the Lion of Leon, and 
the Tower of Castile, the symbolical anchors, and 
the islands and continent of the Indies; but he 
took care to retain his ancestral bearings, which 
duly appear as "a shield or, with a band azure, 
and the okv&l gules .'' 

Don Ferdinand was sometimes rebuked for not 
making out a better pedigree. Friends asked 
why his father should not have been shown to 
come straight from "Junius Colonus" (or "Ju- 
nius Cilo" as they should have said), who con- 
quered the kingdom of Pontus, and brought 
Mithridates in bonds to Rome? Why not, 
again, prove a connection with "the two illustri- 
ous Coloni, his predecessors, who gained a mighty 
victory over the Venetians"? This refers, of 
course, to the sea fight off Cape St. Vincent in 
1485, more fully mentioned in a later chapter. 

It is enough to say here that the description of 
the battle cited by Don Ferdinand is wrong in 
several particulars, "There was," he says, "a 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 13 

famous man called Columbus, of the admiral's 
name and family, renowned upon the sea on 
account of the fleet which he commanded against 
the Infidels, as well as for the country to which 
he belonged, insomuch that they used his name 
to frighten the children in their cradles." He 
was known as "Columbus the younger," to distin- 
guish him from another who was a great sailor 
before him. The last words refer to Guillaume 
Coulon, who created the French navy under 
Louis the Eleventh. This man had a famous 
son, well known as "the pirate Columbus," under 
whom the admiral served for several years. This 
"younger Columbus" of the biography seems to 
have been a Genoese subject ; and from this some 
have taken him to be the same person as "Co- 
lombo of Oneglia," who was hanged at Genoa in 
1492 for acts of piracy against the French. We 
shall deal with their adventures later on. At 
present it is only necessary to observe that Don 
Ferdinand made many excuses about the alleged 
relationship. He gloried indeed in the victory 
over Venice, which he ascribed to a Genoese cor- 
sair. But the admiral, he said, wanted no con- 
nection with courts and great men ; he was, on 
the contrary, like the sailors and fishermen who 



14 ■ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

had been chosen as apostles. He ought to be 
blamed or praised on his own merits. The "Ad- 
miral of the Ocean" required no shield or em- 
blematic doves; he was himself the "Columbus" 
or messenger of hope, the "Christophorus" who 
bore the banner of the faith. By his own wish, 
moreover, he was known as "Colon," rather than 
as one of the family of the "Colombi"; and it 
might be for some good reason that he had thus 
severed his direct line from those collateral 
branches. 



CHAPTER II. 

"Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea, 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town. 

And my youth comes back to me. 

" I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea-tide tossing free, 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 

And the magic of the sea." 

The father of Columbus was Domenico of 
Terra-Rossa, a weaver by trade, who lived in the 
suburbs of Genoa, or in one of the neighboring 
towns, as his business from time to time required. 
His mother was Susanna, daughter of Giacomo of 
Fontana-Rossa, a silk weaver working in the same 
neighborhood. They were married about 1445, 
either at Domenico's place up in the hills, or at 
Quinto, where his father had a house by the sea- 
side, and a felucca, as we suppose, for his trading 
ventures to Alexandria or the Islands. Both fam- 
ilies had been] long established in the valleys of 
the Apennines. Terra-Rossa is a hamlet in the 

IS 



l6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Vale of Fontanabuona, lying above the Lavagna 
River, a few miles inland from Porto Fino. Fon- 
tana-Rossa is a village in the same large valley, 
set at the very foot of the mountain behind 
Chiavari. Both families had been drawn closer 
and closer to Genoa by the attractions of its busy 
commerce. The weaving trade offered a com- 
fortable subsistence without any need to live 
within the crowded walls ; the spice trade gave a 
free outlet to all the young men who were ready 
for adventures at sea. Columbus was born in 
iz[45, or about the beginning of 1446, and at that 
time his mother's family were settled at Quezzi, 
a beautiful hamlet in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of the city. His own parents lived in the 
new suburb just outside one of the ancient gates; 
or, if they changed their abode now and then, 
went no farther than the seaside at Quinto. 

If anyone wishes to see a picture in his mind, 
showing the places where Columbus spent his 
youth, he must endeavor to recall the great view 
from the heights behind Genoa. The gulf curves 
between the horns of Porto Fino and the "olive- 
hoary cape" on the Western Riviera. Below the 
Ligurian Alps are the places connected in truth 
or by tradition with his memory. At Cogoletto, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. ^1 

"in a narrow street and dim," they show the old 
house where he may have lived, and a picture 
revered as his portrait. Albisola has grown from 
a rough hamlet into an expanse of villas and 
flower gardens. Savona lies beyond, with its 
port under St. George's Rock, once nearly de- 
stroyed by the Genoese, but very flourishing 
when Columbus sailed in from time to time. 
Here was the shop where his father made and 
sold "good cloth of Savona," and the tavern 
where Susanna looked after the sailor customers; 
and close to the town lay Valcalda in Legino, 
where two vineyards were purchased, which 
involved the whole family in a dreary lawsuit. 
Looking seaward, the mountains of Corsica 
recall the fancy that Columbus was a native of 
the island. Toward the west the view is blocked 
by the great cape. At San Remo another 
Columbus, supposed to have been the admiral's 
kinsman, was born, and made his home ; and just 
behind the promontory is the creek of Oneglia, 
where the freebooter rested in his lair and divided 
the spoil with Doria. 

We must turn back to Genoa, where Columbus 
was born and passed a great part of his youth. 
His parents lived mostly at Quinto until he was 



l8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

four years old ; and here his sister Biancinetta and 
his brothers Giovanni-Pelegrino and Bartholomew 
were born. The family then came back to live 
near St. Andrew's Gate, and here was born Gia- 
como, who was afterward known as "Don Diego." 

The course of the old walls, the gate by which 
Columbus lived, the street on which the shop 
faced, and its long green lawn in the city moat, 
are marked by the line of the modern boulevards 
and public gardens. 

We may think of him as visiting the Duomo 
and the Doria's church, the porch of San Stefano, 
where the weavers held meetings, and their craft 
hall in the neighborhood of the Abbey. Down 
in the port, where he talked with the sailors on 
the wharves, on one side is the old Mole, where 
the magistrates hanged Columbus the Rover on 
a tower, with his friend Bernardo of Sestri ; and 
close to it stands the Bank of St. George, the 
"Dogana" of our days, with its tiers of statues, 

White and cold, 
Those niched shapes of noble mold, 
A princely people's awful princes. 
The grave, severe, Genovese of old. 

From the old Mole stretched away the port, 
filled with ships of all kinds. There were galleys, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 19 

armed with petronels, three-masters with huge 
square sails, crowded with a rabble of galley 
slaves and cross-bowmen to keep them down. 
One might see galleons arriving from the Levant, 
or making ready for the Flanders voyage; and 
long, raking caraccas, better suited for corsair's 
work than for voyages of commerce and busi- 
ness; and nimble "caravels" from Spain and 
Portugal, English barks, and pinnacles and trad- 
ing boats of all kinds. The port was like the 
harbor of Tyre in the ancient days, and not very 
different in its actual merchandise. 

The principal change was in the places where 
the commodities were produced. The blocks 
and bars of tin, the lead and vessels of pewter, 
came from galleys trading with Southampton, 
and no longer in the ships of Tarshish. The 
lawns and camlets of Cyprus had replaced the 
fine linen and embroideries of Syria. There 
were raw and spun cottons from Malta as well as 
from Egypt and India. But the strong wine of 
Tyre, "the wine of Helbon," was still imported 
from Palestine in the ships that brought the 
choice Malmseys from Candia. The "white 
wools of Damascus" still remained to compete 
with the "Prankish wools" from London and 



20 THE CAREER OE COLUMBUS. 

Norwich, and the raw wool from the warehouses 
at Calais ; but the best classes of stuffs came from 
England, such as "Suffolks" and "village med- 
leys," kerseys of all colors, friezes white and 
unshorn, or "of a looser texture for night wear," 
and fustians and cloth from Essex and Guildford. 
The spice trade was a staple industry at Genoa. 
Her shipmen, like the merchants of Tyre, dealt in 
myrrh and cassia, the true aloes from Socotra, 
galbanum and the sweet storax, the scented cala- 
mus and the Eastern cinnamon. Here, as in 
ancient times, one might see the Caspian mer- 
chants, who had come with Indian silks, and 
rhubarb and spices from Persia, up the broad 
river to Tiflis, and down the gorge to Poti and 
the waves beating on the sandy bar. Here were 
"Indians, Moors, and Greeks," like those with 
whom Columbus held discourse, and the mer- 
chants of the East and West, from the "Levante," 
as they called the parts below Corfu, and from 
the "Ponente," which included Sicily and all the 
lands beyond. 

Genoa runs out on the southeast as far as the 
Bisagno Torrent. In the lifetime of Columbus the 
ancient city walls were still standing, and formed 
an interior zone of fortifications alone the line 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 21 

now occupied in part by the park and the public 
gardens. The space intervening between the old 
walls and the newer ambit of the city was occu- 
pied by the Borgo di San Stefano, still known as 
the "Weavers' Quarter." The weavers were pro- 
tected and encouraged in every way by the Sig- 
noria, whose chief aim, as at Venice, was "to 
provide that all the poor might live and maintain 
themselves," and to help the wool trade in par- 
ticular, "because when this manufacture fails the 
supply of food fails also." In this quarter the 
cloth weavers and blanket makers, combers and 
carders, silk throwers and velvet men, lived in a 
town of comfortable houses and gardens held on 
ground rents under the Abbey of San Stefano. 
In a street outside the Olive Gate was the house 
where Domenico was working, with an appren- 
tice under him, as early as 1439, ^"^^ here it is 
believed that his son Christopher was born. St. 
Andrew's Gate lay nearer to the sea. A street 
ran from it, turning upward to Porticello, leaving 
a considerable space between the roadway and 
the city wall. Here was the house where Colum- 
bus passed most of his boyhood. The place is 
described in the documents collected by Mr. 
Harrisse. The shop was in front, a yard with a 



22 The Career of columbus. 

well behind, and the long garden reached back to 
the foot of the old wall. Something is added 
about the neighbors. The next house on the 
left belonged to the weaver Bondi, and afterward 
to a shoemaker named Tomaso Carbone ; beyond 
him lived another shoemaker, Antonio Pelegro 
of Plazio, for whom Domenico Colombo on one 
occasion witnessed a deed ; on the right hand, or 
south side, was "La Pallavania," so called from 
its owner's name. A little farther off, toward 
the Piazza di Porticello, was the shop of the 
cheesemonger Bavarello, whose son afterward 
married the sister of Columbus. 

Beyond the stream of Bisagno we cross the 
ridge of a hill and look down on the seaside 
towns. Quarto and Quinto, the sites of stations 
on the Roman road, and Nervi, and the village of 
Bogliasco beyond. On one side of the ridge, 
farther inland, lived the family of Fontana-Rossa 
at Quezzi ; on the other lies Ginestreto, where 
Domenico Colombo had a little estate. The hill 
is covered with vineyards and villas, with groves 
of fruit trees. Four centuries ago the place was 
already like a garden, but was clothed in most 
parts with a different vegetation. Lemons and 
oranges were still unknown; no mulberry trees 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 2% 

were required where there was no manufactory 
of the native silk ; but there were already vine- 
yards and olive orchards, and much of the land 
was covered with a growth of chestnuts and fig 
trees. Assiduous industry and experiment, aided 
by a change of weather as the forests disap- 
peared, have converted a rough Alpine district 
into a fertile region of the South. We see that 
this must be so when we look back at the oldest 
descriptions of Liguria. The natives under 
the early Empire drank beer because the little 
wine produced in their country "was harsh and 
tasted of pitch." They were always at work in 
the fofest getting timber for ship building; some 
of theftrees, we are told, were of a vast height, 
and ^much as eight feet in diameter, and the 
wood i was often well-veined, and "as good as 
cedar for cabinet work." They seem to have 
grown no olive trees, for we learn that they 
brought their timber to the mart of Genoa, with 
honey and ox hides and the various produce of 
their flocks and herds, "in order to get in exchange 
the oil and wines of Italy." It seems that the 
weaving trade flourished even in those early times, 
for we are told that there was a ready market 
in Italy for "the Ligurian cloaks and tunics." 



24 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

The history of the family of Columbus appears 
in a series of documents preserved among the 
archives of Genoa and Savona, which were for 
the most part collected before 1586 by Giovanni 
Battista Ferreri of Savona, and published in 1602 
by Giulio Salineri in his "Annotations upon Taci- 
tus." After long disputes and investigations the 
authenticity of all these documents has been 
established, the originals of those which had 
been for a long time missing having been recov- 
ered through the labors of Mr. Harrisse. Old 
Giovanni of Terra-Rossa, the admiral's grand- 
father, was living at Quinto about the year 1445, 
and he appears to have died there, before 1448, 
leaving two sons, Domenico and Antonio, and a 
daughter Battestina. Giovanni seems to have 
owned a considerable amount of property. The 
estate at Terra-Rossa may have gone to his son 
Antonio, but Domenico used the territorial sur- 
name while living at Quinto ; his son Christopher 
often signed his name as "Columbus de Terra- 
rubea," and Bartholomew signed in the same way 
on the map which he presented to Henry the 
Seventh. There was also property at Quinto 
and Ginestreto, besides the two houses at Genoa. 
We hear also of ground rents at Pradello, near 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 25 

Piacenza, which fell to the share of Domenico, 
and were inherited from him by his sons Christo- 
pher and Bartholomew. 

Among the documents preserved at Genoa is a 
settlement made in 1448 on the marriage of Bat- 
testina, then living with her brothers at Quinto, 
with Giovanni di Fritalo, of the same place. The 
brothers bind themselves to pay her dowry of 
sixty gold lire by twelve installments, and each of 
them further agrees to hand over to her trustee 
within three years three silver spoons of due 
weight, "according to the custom of the town of 
Quinto." 

Domenico was evidently of an eager and san- 
guine temperament, often buying and selling, and 
too ready to secure a tempting property by mort- 
gaging his future work. In 1445 he sold certain 
lands at "le Fassiole" in Quinto, described as 
lying between the two highways, and as being 
partly in grass, and partly planted with chestnuts 
and underwood. Six years later he bought some 
land at Quarto, in a place called "le Toppore," 
planted with figs and other trees, at the price of 
fifty gold lire, mostly to be paid in cloth of 
"Genoese medley." Domenico was by this time 
living in Genoa, and the purchase was effected at 



26 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the shop of Master Andrea di Clavaro the barber, 
in the street by St. Andrew's Gate. 

In 1470 he sold the property at Ginestreto, 
and in the following spring his wife released it 
from her jointure with the assent of such of her 
male relations as had rights of pre-emption under 
the law of Genoa. The document by which this 
transaction was completed contains very minute 
information about the relations of Columbus on 
his mother's side. Among those present were 
his uncle Gioagnino of Fontana-Rossa, Guglielmo 
from the same" village, who was his first cousin 
once removed, and Antonio de Amico, his second 
cousin. Among those who were summoned, but 
did not attend, were five more relations called 
"de Fontanarubea," and members of the Pitto 
and Boverio families. 

A good many documents have been found 
from time to time among the archives at Savona 
which serve in one way to illustrate the life of 
Columbus. Of these, some relate to the houses 
at Genoa, where he was born and bred ; others 
show the status of his associates at Savona, his 
efforts to help his father in trade affairs, and the 
troubles which came on the old weaver when his 
sons were gone to the Indies. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 27 

One of these documents, dated in 1472, was 
the will of his friend, Nicola di Monleone, a 
trader of repute at Savona, living in a shop near 
the law courts. Among the witnesses' names we 
find those of Fazio, a cloth shearer; Vigna, and 
two other tailors by trade ; Geronimo, a shoe- 
maker, and "Christoforo di Colombo, of Genoa, 
weaver." 

About this time we find his father engaging 
vigorously in business. He makes repeated pur- 
chases of "wool of Safifi," in bales worth about 
eighteen gold lire apiece, at eighteen rolls to the 
bale. The price was usually to be paid in kind, 
with six months' credit or more, the purchasers 
contracting to deliver so many pieces of white 
Savona stuff, each piece in sixteen lengths, and 
weighing twenty pounds Genoese. In June, 
1472, Domenico bought sixty-four rolls of wool 
on this system. In the August following he 
bought seven bales more at twenty gold lire the 
bale, his son Christopher being required to join 
as security. The terms were cash in a year, or 
so much Savona cloth within six months. The 
notarial registers for 1473-74 contain several 
entries relating to deliveries of cloth by install- 
ments under these contracts. 



2 8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

A deed of August, 1473, relates to the old 
house near the Olive Gate at Genoa. A certain 
cloth worker had offered to purchase it for a price 
to be paid in kind. Susanna joins in the deed 
to release her rights of jointure, and her sons 
Christopher and Giovanni-Pelegrino confirm the 
transaction as her nearest male relations. This 
deed was executed "in the shop belonging to the 
dwelling house of the said Domenico and Su- 
sanna." 

In August, 1474, Domenico made an unfor- 
tunate purchase of lands in the suburbs of 
Savona. The price was never fully paid, and the 
litigation arising out of the contract seems to 
have dragged on until Don Diego Columbus, 
about the year 15 14, inquired about the affair, 
and sent an authority from Hispaniola to settle 
it, long after all the original parties had passed 
away. 

The vendor was one Corrado di Cuneo ; the 
purchaser is described as Domenico di Colombo, 
of Quinto, a weaver of Genoa, at that time resid- 
ing at Savona. The price was fixed at two 
hundred and fifty gold lire of Savona, to be paid 
by delivery of parcels of cloth in regular install- 
ments. The property consisted of two pieces of 
land on the Valcalda Road, partly under vines 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 29 

and part in grass, with plantations of fruit trees 
and underwood. One piece was freehold. 
Among the fixtures were certain wine vats, 
which may have had a special value to a pur- 
chaser who kept a tavern. The other was held 
on a renewable lease from one of the Canons of 
Savona at a rent of a few pence. On the con- 
firmation of the purchase by the Cathedral Chap- 
ter, this rent was increased to twelve soldi, and it 
was agreed that the lease should be renewable 
every ninth year forever. 

Domenico Colombo died about the year 1498, 
his wife having died about four years previously. 
His estate was insufficient to meet the claims 
still outstanding under the contract of purchase, 
and after some preliminary proceedings an action 
was duly instituted against Christopher, Barthol- 
omew, and Giacomo, as the heirs of Domenico 
Colombo. They were, of course, living at that 
time beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, resid-' 
ing, in the words of the legal formula, "beyond 
the limits of Pisa and Nice in Provence," and 
were, indeed, according to common repute, in 
some part of the dominions of Spain. The 
next neighbors were accordingly summoned 
in their place, under a provision of the Savano 
Code, and judgment was given against them. 



•30 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Before passing away from the subject of the 
family property we must inquire what became of 
the house and shop by St. Andrew's Gate in 
Genoa. Domenico returned to the city when he 
wate past work, and was Hving on the allowance 
received from the admiral. The old house, how- 
ever, had pa-ssed from his possession some years 
since. There had been a mortgage in 1477, 
made in consideration of an annuity secured in 
the books of the Bank of St. George ; and in 
1489 the property was charged with a large sum 
of money, found to be due to Giacomo Bavarello 
the cheesemonger, in respect of Biancinetta's 
unpaid dowry. In 1490 Domenico was still in 
possession, and gave a receipt for rent to a shoe- 
maker who was occupying the shop. But about 
two years afterward Bavarello realized his secur- 
ity, and obtained a perpetual lease of the prem- 
ises from the Abbey of San Stefano. His wife 
was dead at that time, having left an only son, 
Pantaleone, then about twenty-seven years of 
age. He and his wife Mariola released their 
rights in consideration of certain annuities, and 
Giacomo Bavarello thus became absolutely 
entitled to the property. 



CHAPTER III. 

" In his drowsy Paradise 
The day's adventures for the day suffice ; 
Its constant tribute of perceptions strange, 
With sleep and stir in healthy interchange, 
Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease — 
Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees. 
Eats the life out of every luscious plant. 
And when September finds them sere or scant. 
Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite, 
And hies him after unforseen delight." 

There is no reason for doubting the biogra- 
pher's statement that Columbus was sent to 
school at Pavia. The great University was then 
at the height of its fame. Its chief renown was 
in the school of law, where the jurists kept alive 
the learning of Bartolo and Baldo. It was cele- 
brated, moreover, for the attention paid to disci- 
pline and morals, the careful teaching of theol- 
ogy, and the painful study of the philosophy of 
that day. Pavia has always been celebrated in 
the faculty of medicine. Natural science was 
studied, as far as the restrictions on knowledge 
would admit, in the departments of botany and 



32 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

anatomy, of the knowledge of the earth and of 
the celestial sphere. We ' must remember that 
the real "order of the universe" was only just 
beginning to be known. It was still a heresy, 
and a folly besides, to believe in the Antipodes, 
with the rain shooting upward and men walking 
head downward. It was a dangerous error to 
think of a diurnal movement of all things : 

The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun, 
The dark Earth follows wheeled in her ellipse. 

But the age was already excited with the 
great African discoveries, and looking eagerly for 
fresh wonders of science. The importance of 
cosmography, of geometry, and especially of 
nautical astronomy, was recognized on all sides. 
The professors at Pavia included the new sub- 
jects in their course of instruction. Columbus 
was sent there to study geography in its widest 
sense. His mind seems to have run upon this 
subject from his early childhood. He entered 
into all the departments of knowledge, without 
which he could not become one of the cosmogra- 
phers. Latin and arithmetic were among the 
preliminary rudiments. He^ advanced toward the 
sciences of the measurement of the earth and the 
apparent movements of the stars, and that knowl- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. %t 

edge of their appositions and occultations which 
he afterward himself compared to "a prophet's 
vision." We are told that he also learned paint- 
ing "in order to depict the regions of the world, 
and to represent solid and lineal figures." Don 
Ferdinand adds as another reason that the great- 
est of geographers had said, "No one can be a 
good cosmographer unless he is a painter too." 
The quotation from Ptolemy is incorrect, perhaps 
taken from a conversation with the admiral with- 
out referring to the book. The ancient writer 
drew a distinction between the science of geogra- 
phy and the art of "chorography," or description 
of places. The science, he said, dealt mainly 
with quantities, and the inferior art with quali- 
ties. The former is a mathematical description 
of the proportions existing in nature, and re- 
quires only signs and symbols. The other deals 
with outward and physical appearances, "and no 
one," he adds, "will ever do this well unless he is 
able to paint." We are not considering the cor- 
rectness of his view, or the fallacy of confusing 
the atlas with the panorama. It is easy to see 
why Columbus attached great importance to the 
practical knowledge of map-making. He was, we 
are told, so excellent a draughtsman, and such a 



34 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

"penman," that he could have maintained him- 
self as a master of calligraphy. He was, we 
know, so skilled in the preparation of charts, 
"sea cocks," and sailors' cards, that he was able 
to keep his family out of the profits when he 
lived at Lisbon and in the Atlantic islands. 
Something of this kind we may learn from his 
own letter to the Catholic king, where he de- 
scribes his intended journal ; he promises to set 
down at night all that happened by day, and 
every day the navigation of the night before: 
"and I purpose to make a chart and to set down 
therein the lands and waters of the Ocean Sea, 
with all their positions and bearings, and to com- 
pose it into a book, and to illustrate the whole 
with paintings, showing, as we go, the latitude 
from the Equator, and also the western longi- 
tude." 

It has been said that Columbus was too young 
in 1460 to be sent to a distant university, and 
that there was, in fact, no time for study at Pavia 
if he not only began to go to sea when he was 
about fourteen years old, but also had to serve 
an apprenticeship in the weaver's trade. There 
is no doubt that he was so apprenticed, probably 
to his own father, and we know from the family 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 35 

records the exact nature of the contract. At 
some time after he was ten years old he was 
bound to work at weaving for a term of years, to 
obey all lawful orders, to remain ki Genoa ex- 
cept when the plague was raging, and in return 
to get board and lodging, a blue gaberdinxe and a 
good pair of shoes, and so forth. But his father 
could of course relax or suspend the o^bligatioSn, 
and, inasmuch as Genoa began in 1459 ^^ bp the 
center of warlike preparations for the great expe- 
dition against Naples, it seems more than prob- 
able that an opportunity would be found for 
removing the boy to more peaceful quarters. 
The same remark applies to the suggestion that 
sufficient schooling in maritime affairs could have 
been found at home without going to lectures in 
an inland city. It should be remembered also 
that the expense of living at Pavia would be very 
slight, if we may judge by the records of our 
English universities during the same period ; and 
that it was the fashion of the time for boys to 
attend the professor's lectures at an age when, in 
our own state of society, they would be entering 
a public school. 

Looking back to the time when Columbus was 
being educated there, one would see a very dif- 



36 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ferent place from the Pavia of our day. Some 
features, of course, remain unchanged. The 
town stands in the circuit of the ancient walls 
within a network of confluent streams. The cov- 
ered bridge is still as favorite a resort as when 
Sforza set the roof on its hundred pillars. But 
at that time the building of the great castle 
behind the linen market had only just begun; 
scores of private fortresses preserved the memory 
of the feudal age and suggested an appropriate 
name for the "City of Towers." ''No great cathe- 
dral church was erected as yet, but there were 
many old Lombard churches, "carved like a fev- 
erish dream," most of which have long since 
been destroyed. Some of their monuments, still 
preserved in the University's courtyards, show 
the figures of the ancient professors, Baldo and 
Alciati and the rest, lecturing in the midst of a 
circle of scholars old and young. Some change 
for the worse has come over the place. It is 
dismal and (as some say) unwholesome. But, 
according to its historians, this was a delightful 
region in the time of which we are speaking. 
There were green plains around, and hanging 
woods, with thickets of box and tamarisk. On 
the meadows round the city the boys played and 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 37 

raced in the winter sunshine ; in summer, to 
quote Sacci's description, the time came for 
walks and dozing in the shade. The air is full of 
singing and fluttering birds. No venomous creat- 
ures are here; the whining cicada is still, and 
even the flies are kept off by the cool Alpine 
breeze. We read in old eulogies of the Univer- 
sity how broad were the streets and piazzas full 
of bustling scholars, how bright the gardens 
laden "with the odor and color of flowers." We 
can learn something even of the sports and 
games. The boys raced and played at bowls, or 
fell into groups for games of catching; and Pavia 
was especially famous for "balloon-ball," or a 
kind of rude tennis, for which Sforza had built 
courts about the time when he restored the 
schools. 

One would wish to know somewhat more 
about the scholars themselves, their lessons, and 
ways of living. A few figures, chiefly those of 
professors and lawyers, may still be disengaged 
from obscurity. Filippo Decio, the unconquered 
disputant, was a few years younger than Colum- 
bus ; he came as a boy to learn law at Pavia, and 
long afterward had a house demolished there by 
the army of Pope Julius the Second. Giasone 



3^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Maino, "the glory of the civilians," was born in 
1435. He may, therefore, have been at Pavia 
with the young Columbus. We hear something 
of a reckless youth, a torn gown, and a vellum 
Code left at the pawn shop ; afterward, we are 
told, he "pulled himself together," and became 
the most illustrious of the professors. An eye- 
witness reports a scene of the year 1507, when 
Genoa had been taken by the French. Louis the 
Twelfth went on to Pavia to hear a lecture from 
"the solid doctor," as Maino was at that time 
called. The old classroom was crowded with car- 
dinals and nobles ; the professor wore a gold- 
laced gown, and was knighted ; and there was 
even some hope of a cardinal's hat. Paolo 
Giovio, who tells the story, describes the college 
life as he saw it, the competition in lectures, the 
fine addresses of Torriano on new discoveries in 
anatomy and medical botany, and the degree 
day when Paolo himself received the ring and 
laurel wreath as a Master in Arts and Medi- 
cine. 

A letter written by one of the professors dur- 
ing the lifetime of Columbus shows us the effect 
produced at Pavia by the new discoveries. It 
was sent to Ludovico Sforza by one Nicolo Scil- 



The career of Columbus. 3^ 

lacio, a lecturer in philosophy, who kept up a cor- 
respondence with Spain. It is valuable as con- 
taining an independent account of the events of 
the second voyage ; but its chief interest lies in 
what is disclosed as to the state of geographical 
learning. Columbus thought that he had arrived 
at the neighborhood of China and Japan. By 
the general opinion of Pavia the new islands were 
at the back of Africa, near the spice country and 
the Arabian shore ; they were, in fact, the goal of 
the Carthaginian commerce, the market of King 
Solomon's navies, and had been described by 
many of the great writers of antiquity. Scillacio 
labored at this point when describing the natives 
of Hispaniola. "It is ascertained," he says, "that 
these are the Sabaeans of the spice country, noted 
in foreign chronicles, and over and over again 
described in our books at home." It should be 
observed that he came from Sicily himself, and 
makes a constant use of the collections of Dio- 
dorus the Sicilian. "Everyone has been repeat- 
ing, 'The kings shall come from Sheba, bringing 
gold and incense' ; and with those kings the 
island teems copiously and in bounteous abun- 
dance. For the Sabseans are most wealthy in 
the fragrance and fertility of their forests, and in 



4o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

gold mines, and well watered meadows, and good 
store of honey and wax." 

Scillacio was, of course, referring to the bril- 
liant description of Arabia by Diodorus. "On 
the coasts grow balm and cassia ; in the heart of 
the land are shady woods and forests, graced and 
beautified with stately trees of myrrh and frank- 
incense, palms, and calamus, and cinnamon." 
Of the Sabseans in their chief city, he said that 
they lived in a flood of gold and silver; their 
cups and vats were of the precious metals, their 
beds and chairs had silver feet. "The porticoes 
of their houses and temples are some of them 
overlaid with gold, and silver statues are placed 
upon the chapiters of the temples." 

The professor next shows, still with constant 
references to the ancient historian, how the King 
of Spain, like another Hercules, had passed the 
bounds of Ethiopia and found the lost islands of 
the Indian Sea. One point is made that was after- 
ward taken up by Columbus: The geographers, 
he says, and even the great Ambrosio Rosato, 
must have been rather careless in their inquiries 
about the Southern Ocean. "They have always 
insisted that this vast tract of water was shut in 
on all sides by a continent; but in our time, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 41 

under the good auspices of the Spanish kings we 
have seen this ring sailed through." Columbus 
speaks of the same thing in the account of his 
mystical vision. The voice said, "He gave thee 
the keys of those barriers of the Ocean Sea which 
were closed with such mighty chains, and thou 
wast obeyed through many lands." It is plain 
that there is also a reference here to one of those 
sayings in Esdras on which the admiral was fond 
of basing his predictions. "The sea is set in a 
wide place that it might be deep and great. But 
put the case the entrance were narrow like a 
river; who then could go into the sea to look 
upon it and to rule it? If he went not through 
the narrow how could he come into the broad?" 

Let it sufHce, said Scillacio, that in this voyage 
the islands have been found ; something has been 
learned of the climate, and some of the ports 
have become known. "When they go back 
again, and are able to traverse the coasts and to 
explore the country inland, I shall take pains to 
complete the descriptions of the classical writers; 
I shall add all that old tradition reports about 
the savage manners and customs of the nations 
of monsters, which Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 
an African himself, a pillar of the faith, saw with 



42 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

his own eyes in the ends of Lybia, and collected 
them in the book entitled 'Sermons to the Erem- 
ites.' " St. Augustine never wrote the book in 
question, though he was credited with having 
seen the one-eyed folk and people with heads 
beneath their shoulders. St. Jerome, in the 
same way, was believed to be the authority for 
half the absurdities which were collected in the 
"Cosmography of ^thicus," and afterward in the 
pretended travels of Mandeville. All the trav- 
elers' gossip of the Greeks and the stories of the 
Eastern bazaars had been foisted into general 
belief under the pretended authority of Aristotle. 
It was one of the chief impediments of learning 
in the time of Columbus that the very sources of 
knowledge were polluted in this fashion. The 
classical works of Pliny and Mela, on which the 
student had to depend, were full of scraps of 
romance, taken from some Syrian story about 
Thule, or some imaginary voyage out of the Cas- 
pian Strait toward the cannibals beyond China 
and the islands of gold and silver. Cosmas the 
Voyager was supposed to have demolished the 
theory that the earth was a sphere. Little was 
to be gained, beyond a list of names, from the 
Geographer of Ravenna and his collegtion of the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 43 

learning of the Ostrogoths. The most popular 
treatise on the subject was a mere travesty of an 
ancient novel about the wanderings of Apol- 
lonius. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that men of 
science relied on authorities of little value, and 
altered their opinions on evidence which seems 
very slight in our eyes. Even the description of 
America, as we have seen, had been found in the 
pages of Pliny and Diodorus. Columbus himself 
easily gave up the notion that the earth was 
round, though the experiments of Ptolemy had 
proved it by eclipses and other observations. On 
equally light evidence he concluded that he had 
found in Veragua a savage nation described by 
Herodotus, as well as the golden Chersonese de- 
picted in the histories of Josephus. In framing 
his theory of the distribution of land and sea, he 
appears to have based his reasonings on the dark 
questions of Uriel and the responses of Esdras : 
"How great dwellings are in the midst of the sea, 
or which are the outgoings of Paradise?" He 
argues that, of the world's seven parts six are in 
the domain of Behemoth, wherein are a thousand 
ills; "unto Leviathan Thou gavest the seventh 
part, namely the moist, and hast kept him to be 



44 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

devoured of whom Thou wilt and when." It 
must have been from a few vague sayings of the 
Fathers, and certain fables of the Ravenna Geog- 
rapher, that he learned to look near India for the 
site of the Garden of Eden and the outfalls of its 
fourfold river. We have no means of ascertain- 
ing the exact details of his studies, though his 
biographer and Peter Martyr agree in the state- 
ment that he attended classes in astronomy and 
the use of the celestial sphere, and made some 
practical acquaintance with the astrolabe and 
other instruments of the art of navigation. The 
archives of the University have been minutely 
searched for anything that could illustrate the 
great man's career, and some of the professors 
have been identified as having given lectures 
which he most probably attended. The list 
begins in the year 1460, about the time of his 
return to Genoa. We learn by its help that 
Stefano di Faventia and Antonio di Bernadigio 
were at that time lecturing on astrology, which, 
according to the ideas of that time, would in- 
clude geometry and a knowledge of astronomy 
proper, as well as the art of interpreting the signs 
of future events. Francesco Pellacano and Al- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 45 

berto di Crispi were lecturing about the same 
time on natural philosophy; and we may sup- 
pose that it was in their classes that Columbus 
acquired his first instruction in Ptolemaic geogra- 
phy and the physical science of Aristotle. 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Ship to ship, cannon to cannon, man 
To man, were grappled in the embrace of war, 
Inextricable but by death or victory ; 
The tempest of the raging fight convulsed 
To its crystalline depths that stainless sea." 

Columbus left Pavia when he was about four- 
teen years old. For a few months he was 
employed as an apprentice at home, working at 
the wool-carding and helping his father at the 
loom. He looked forward, like most of the boys 
in Genoa, to a life of adventure at sea. He cher- 
ished his private hope of probing the deep secrets 
of nature in every part of the earth "from Thule 
to the girdle of the world." 

There was, however, at that time, a sudden out- 
burst of war, which kept him cooped up within 
the walls. Early in the year 1461 Genoa had 
thrown off the yoifc of France. The foreign gar- 
rison was driven into the Castle and besieged by 
the civic militia. King R6n6, whom Genoa had 
often befriended, came over the sea from Prov- 
ence and blockaded the port with a fleet of priva- 

46 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 47 

teers. But as the summer advanced the citizens 
gained strength and ventured on a decisive battle, 
in which the foreigners were driven away beyond 
Savona. Columbus, "still in his tender youth," 
was free to begin his career, and was soon going 
about in the trading boats to Sicily and Aleppo 
and up and down among the islands. When he 
wrote long afterward his description of the mastic 
trees of Hispaniola he told the Spanish king that 
he had seen the lentiscus shrubs growing in Scio, 
while'the island still belonged to Genoa, and had 
noticed how the white gum was got from the 
plants by incisions made just as they began to 
flower. When he speaks of his discussions with 
learned Indians we may suppose that he had 
passed the Golden Horn, and visited the Black 
Sea factories, where the Genoese conducted their 
Crimean trade and collected at Poti the Indian 
goods which the merchants brought down 
through Georgia. 

It was not until 1470 that he set up his home 
in Lisbon. It was at the end of 1484 that he 
fled into Spain, and he said in a letter to King 
Ferdinand that he had then been negotiating 
with the Court of Portugal for fourteen years. 
We cannot account for all his employments froni 



48 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

his first going to sea until he was wrecked on the 
coast of Portugal. We know from his own state- 
ments that he was seldom away from the water 
for any length of time; and we may suppose 
that he was often at Genoa and Savona. But 
it seems clear that during the latter part of the 
period he gave up trade and engaged in priva- 
teering under the command of the younger 
Colombo, one of the two "admirals" whose fleets 
were the terror of the West. 

There has always been a great confusion of 
ideas about the lives and exploits of these men. 
They were closely connected in many ways. 
It seems probable that they were father and son. 
They sailed under the same flag and were en- 
gaged in the same undertakings; each of them 
was described in official documents as a vice- 
admiral of France, and each was known as "the 
Pirate Columbus" to the merchants whose ships 
they captured. 

The elder Columbus makes a figure in French 
history under the title of "the Admiral Coulon." 
He belonged to the family of Coulon, or "De 
Columbo," long established in the neighborhood 
of Bayonne, and was the owner of an estate in 
G^scony called Casenove or Caseneuve. In 



THE CAREER OP COLUMBUS. 49 

some of his family documents we find him offi- 
cially styled "Guillaume Casenove, dit Coulomp." 
This man was one of the most useful tools of 
Louis the Eleventh. He had been the king's 
friend before he came to the throne, and during 
the whole length of the reign he was loaded with 
gifts and privileges. He was appointed vice 
admiral of Normandy before the year 1465, and 
he held the ofifice till his death in 1483. Besides 
this, he was Controller of Forests and Waters for 
Normandy and Picardy ; he was one of the royal 
equerries; he had privileges in some of the 
southern forests, and fees and pensions charged 
on various ports and havens in the North. More 
than all this, he was permitted to marry a great 
heiress, Guillemette le Sec, who brought with her 
estates at Varelme, Charleval, and Mesnil-Paviot, 
and the mansion at Gaillart-Bois, near Rouen, 
where Louis used to stay with the old admiral 
and weave plans for the destruction of their ene- 
mies. Knowing the king's superstitious charac- 
ter, it is interesting to hear that "the bold 
Coulon" kept an astrologer in the house, one 
Maitre Robert de Cazel, who knew the secrets of 
navigation, and made such good calculations 
"that the admiral did more in his time than any 



$0 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

seaman since Messire Bertrand du GuescHn, 
and was more feared than any living man on the 
sea by the Norman coasts." Wherever Louis 
had work to be done, there the old sea-wolf was 
found. He captured English ships returning 
from their voyages to the Levant. He swept 
the Dutch and Flemish traders from the sea in 
the face of the navy of Charles the Bold. In 
1474 he took two galleons belonging to the King 
of Naples at Viverro on the north coast of 
Spain ; and two years afterward he entered Brest 
Harbor, and took four Spanish vessels, putting 
all his prisoners to death "by the edge of the 
sword." A little later we find him convoying 
the defeated King of Portugal with a great navy 
under the French flag. Soon afterward he is in 
the North again, and in 1479 ^^ revenged the 
invasion of France by Maximilian and the defeat 
of Louis at Guinegatte by capturing eighty 
Dutch ships coming from the Baltic with cargoes 
of rye, while other ^cumeurs de mer acting with 
him captured the boats returning from the her- 
ring fishery, a blow which struck the whole popu- 
lation of the Low Countries and led at once to 
the peace concluded at Tours. 

The other "Admiral," called for distinction 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 5I , 

"Colombo il Zovene," or "filius Columbi," was 
more of an adventurer, we might say more of a 
corsair, than Coulon de Casenove. We do not 
know, nor is it of much importance to know, 
whether he was the natural son of the French 
vice admiral. He was certainly not the son of 
Guillemette le Sec, whose heir, Jean de Casenove, 
succeeded her in possession of the estates; nor 
was he connected, so far as is known, with the 
other Jean de Casenove, who was employed in 
the French navy after the vice admiral's death. 
His real name was Nicolo Griego, or Nicholas 
the Greek; and that this was not a mere by-name 
is shown by the mention of Giovanni Griego and 
Zorzi Griego, who fought under his command in 
1485, and took part in the negotiations for restor- 
ing the ships which he had captured to the Re- 
public of Venice. Some time afterward there was 
another Nicolo Griego, who Avas killed by the 
Turks at Constantinople ; and it seems likely 
that there was a family of the name driven away 
from their country upon the fall of the Eastern 
Empire, and established either at Genoa or some- 
where in that neighborhood. It was said of this 
Nicolo Griego, or "Nicolo Columbo," that no one 
could actually say that he came from Genoa, but 



52 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

that he was believed to be a citizen of Savona, 
within the territories of the Republic. 

There are many stories about this Griego, 
under whose flag Columbus served so long. We 
have seen that he began by equipping at his own 
expense a fleet against the Infidels. We can 
sympathize under the circumstances with the 
desire to smite the Turks hip and thigh. But his 
main object seems to have been to damage the 
Venetians, partly as being the hereditary rivals 
of his adopted country, and partly, no doubt, 
because the French king secretly encouraged 
everyone who would attack the friends of his 
enemies. 

The true explanation is afforded by the corre- 
spondence which passed in 1474 and the year fol- 
lowing with respect to the ships captured at 
Viverro. As soon as Ferdinand of Sicily heard 
of Coulon's action, he at once sent to Louis and 
demanded full compensation. In a letter of the 
9th of December, 1474, he expresses the aston- 
ishment with which he had heard, "that one 
Columbus, in command of certain ships, being a 
French subject, should have taken two great gal- 
leys, which last year went by our orders to trade 
with England and Flanders," turning out the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBlfS. 53 

crews and the merchants, and carrying off the 
galleys to Normandy. It had been reported, 
while the ships were still at Southampton, that 
this Columbus was fitting out a squadron ; but 
absolute reliance had been placed on the good 
feehng of the King of France, and now that the 
galleys were within his jurisdiction the writer felt 
confident that they would be duly restored with 
all their contents. "The whole world," he 
added, "will judge between the parties to this 
cause. Wherefore we have thought fit to send 
Arminius, our king-at-arms, to carry this letter 
to your Majesty, and to bring back the answer 
which your Majesty may think fit to deliver to 
him." Louis was delighted with his admiral's 
prowess, and was still more pleased, in this in- 
stance, at being able to gain an ally on cheap 
terms. 

The answer was written on New Year's Day. 
Louis remarked, after many compliments, that 
he had never had any injury from his friend, 
except, indeed, when he allowed his soldiers to 
attack the French expedition for the recovery of 
Roussillon. As to the capture of the galleys, it 
was done without the king's knowledge and 
against his wish, and as soon as he heard of it. 



54 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

orders were given to impound all the spoil that 
could be found. It was true that a good deal of 
merchandise had been stolen or concealed by the 
captain or by some of those who were with him ; 
nevertheless, the king would, on receiving proper 
schedules and declarations, account for all the 
freight, besides giving the crews some wages, and 
sending back the galleys properly victualed and 
fitted out. "But," said Louis, "when we come 
to inquire of Columbus and his men what led 
them to make this capture, against our wish, and 
without any orders, what is their reply? Why, 
they answer at once that it was because your 
Majesty's people attacked our forces in Roussil- 
lon ; because, moreover, these galleys were at that 
very time returning out of the jurisdiction of the 
English, the inveterate enemies of our crown, and 
because the origin of their voyage had been in 
the territory held by Charles of Burgundy, one of 
our disobedient subjects. These galleys had 
begun their voyage as carriers of goods for the 
comfort and assistance of our enemies, and were 
returning with stores intended to be used to our 
loss. Moreover, this Columbus urges that by the 
laws of war, as always used and acknowledged in 
these western seas, any ship, galley, or bark may 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 55 

be lawfully captured which is coming from an 
enemy's country, especially if carrying goods 
whereby he may be enriched or strengthened. 
Now those galleys certainly carried a quantity of 
goods belonging to our enemies and to rebels 
against us; and they had no license or permit 
such as the French galleys have always had when 
they have visited your Majesty's dominions." 
Such, said the French king, were the reasons 
which might be properly adduced in favor of the 
capture; but in spite of all this he intended to 
restore the ships as before mentioned. As to the 
enemy's goods on board, the ordinary rule would 
be followed, that such goods may be seized, even 
under a friendly flag, on making good the freight, 
as the king was now ready to do. 

The services of Nicolo Colombo were at one 
time engaged by R^n6 of Provence. The titular 
King of Sicily claimed a right to attack the ships 
of the reigning sovereign. News had been 
brought to Marseilles that a great vessel, called 
La Ferdinandina of Naples, was lying off the 
African coast near Tunis. She was a "galeass," 
which has been defined as a large galley with 
three masts and two lateen or triangular sails, 
with an armed crew and heavy catapults set 



56 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

between the benches of the oarsmen. Colombo's 
squadron was lying in the port, and Christopher 
Columbus was chosen to go across in command 
of a "cutting-out" expedition. He has told the 
story himself in a letter written in January, 1495, 
from Hispaniola. "It happened to me that King 
Ren6, whom God has taken to himself, sent me 
to Tunis to take the galeass, and when I got near 
the island of San Pietro off Sardinia, I heard that 
she had two ships and a long caracca in her com- 
pany. This discomposed my men, and they 
resolved to go no further, but to return to Mar- 
seilles for another ship and more men. I saw 
that there was no going against their will without 
some contrivance, and seemed to give way ; but 
then I turned the needle of the compass right 
round, and set sail when it Avas getting late ; and 
the next day at sunrise we found ourselves off 
Cape Certegna (in Africa), though all the crew 
had thought for certain that we were making 
homeward to Marseilles." We do not know the 
result of the engagement. Columbus was only 
referring to the matter as an illustration of his 
knowledge of nautical science. But we may con- 
jecture that it began in the same way as Colom- 
bo's fight in 1475, when he attacked the Venetian 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 57 

squadron off Cyprus. "We came upon Colom- 
bo," says the report to the Duke of Milan, "with 
ships and galleys, and we were strongly minded 
to let him pass ; but they raised a shout of 'Viva 
San Giorgio,' and would not move, and so the 
fight began." 

We have fuller information about the attack 
on the Venetian galleys returning from England 
in 1470, and generally about the danger to which 
these ships were exposed in their annual voyage. 
It should be remembered that the successful 
attack of 1485, in which Christopher Columbus 
was not engaged, was made on the galleys soon 
after they had left Cadiz, and had got to Cape 
St. Vincent on their outward course. The whole 
trade was a development of an earlier inter- 
course between Venice and Flanders. Towards 
the end of the fourteenth century it was found 
that there was sufficient demand to justify the 
loading of cargoes for London and Southamp- 
ton, as well as for the ports in Flanders. Two 
additional vessels were usually detailed for this 
purpose. The whole trading squadron, still 
known officially as the Flanders galleys, arrived 
every summer in the Downs, and there separated 
for the ports on either side of the Channel. For 



58 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the return voyage in the autumn they all assem- 
led again at Southampton. 

They brought us the produce of the East, and 
all kinds of goods from the Mediterranean ports. 
The nature of the commerce appears from the 
schedules of rates and prices current. The Eng- 
lish market required wine, dried currants, Sicilian 
sugars, and raw silks and cottons for the home 
manufacturers. From Venice itself came dam- 
asks, velvets, and worked silks of all kinds. Of 
Genoese goods we took the gum mastic and fine 
"terebinths," or resins, from Scio ; . from Sicily, 
among the less bulky goods, were sweets and pre- 
served fruits, coral beads and gall nuts, and lamb- 
skin "astrachans" brought over to Palermo from 
Apulia. Among the spices we required, of 
course, all that were commonly used in cookery, 
including saffron, which had not yet become an 
English crop and was largely imported from 
Italy ; of other spices and drugs we may note the 
aloes and dragon's blood from Socotra, scam- 
mony from Aleppo, camphor and red sandal- 
wood, cloves and clove stems, cinnamon and reed 
cassia, ambergris from the Southern Ocean, and 
the dried Indian- fruits called "myrobolans," which 
were used in medicine as astringents. The car- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 59 

goes for the Flemish cities consisted of much the 
same kind of goods ; but there were special de- 
mands at Bruges for tabbies and silk yarns from 
Syria, cardamums, woad and indigo, the hepatic 
aloes, Barbary wax, and unworked ostrich feath- 
ers; the Antwerp merchants demanded in addi- 
tion Sicilian sulphur, ivory for combs, diamonds, 
rubies, and manufactured jewelry. 

There was a brisk demand for English woolen 
cloths, and for cups, platters, and other articles 
of wrought pewter. But the bulk of the cargoes 
for the return voyage consisted of raw materials. 
Of the five staple commodities that might be 
purchased by the Venetians either in London or 
at Middelburg in Zealand, by far the most impor- 
tant were the wools and wool-fells, which are 
described in the Great Ordinance of the Staple 
as "the sovereign merchandise and jewel of our 
realm." Next in importance were lead and tin in 
sheets, rods, and blocks. Leather was in de- 
mand, if the quality were good. Large Flemish 
dressed oxhides sold well "at all the scales," 
especially at Pisa and Palermo ; and there was a 
demand for calfskins, "if they were very large 
and heavy." Copper, unworked amber, and a 
few other articles of occasional demand appear 



6o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

from time to time in the lists. There seems to 
have been a special trade with Barbary, under 
rules enforced with great severity. One of the 
returning galleys was allowed to call at the Moor- 
ish ports with "fine English cloths" and certain 
manufactured articles; but no tin or copper, or 
article containing either of those metals, might 
be landed without incurring ruinous forfeitures 
and penalties. 

There are many entries in the Venetian ar- 
chives showing the dangers with which the trade 
was surrounded. In one year the captain reports 
that it would be dangerous to go near Sandwich 
"by reason of a powerful English armada"; on 
another occasion a ship is only licensed to pro- 
ceed "if it be known that she can pass Sandwich 
in safety." We hear continually of attacks ap- 
prehended from "those who wish to live at their 
neighbors' cost." 

In the spring of 1468 the danger seemed to be 
increasing. There were rumors in the Rialto 
that La JiLStiniana was lying in the Port of Lon- 
don, short of sailors and "in manifest peril." 
She ought to have had nearly forty more cross- 
bowmen, besides her complement of rough Sla- 
vonian rowers. The Senate met on May the 5th, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 6i 

and the Doge was instructed to write to Ser 
Luca Moro, commanding the fleet. The letter 
still remains enrolled among the "Sea Decrees" 
at Venice. Moro is directed to raise the crew to 
the full strength without delay. Should he not 
have left Bruges, he may raise twenty-five or 
thirty men in Flanders, and take them across to 
Southampton. Then he might put them on 
board the galley lying there, and take a corre- 
sponding number of picked men from Southamp- 
ton across the country to London. Should he 
be in England, he was to transfer enough men 
from his other ships to man the Justiniana. In 
any case, he must engage enough sailors, and he 
was to take care that they belonged to as many 
different nationalities as possible. "He is to take 
the money required for manning the London 
galley on a bill of exchange, if the master will 
not disburse it, on the security of the freight, as 
well as on the primage and freights from Sicily 
and Barbary." 

In the following month the Milanese ambassa- 
dor reports a suspicious circumstance to his mas- 
ter. The English and the Spaniards were in the 
habit of capturing each other's ships in a never- 
ending §eries of reprisals. But sornething had 



62 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

recently happened which looked as if there was 
an understanding between the two governments 
to fit out a combined fleet against France. "The 
Admiral of France," meaning the Vice Admiral 
Coulon, had captured two English ships, with 
cargoes of spices and other merchandise, return- 
ing from the Levant. As he was going home 
with his prizes he was himself captured by a 
Spanish man-of-war. The Frenchman protested, 
on the ground that his country was at peace with 
Spain, and demanded immediate release. "You 
need not think of such a thing," said the Spanish 
captain ; "you would do as much to me, and 
worse too, if you had the chance" ; and he re- 
minded Coulon of the letters of mark and reprisal 
under which so much property of Spanish sub- 
jects had been seized. 

The imprisonment of Coulon relieved to a 
great extent the anxieties of the Venetian mer- 
chants. It seems, however, as if they did not 
know the real nature of their danger. We can 
see that Louis the Eleventh never lost an oppor- 
tunity of setting their enemies upon them, and 
yet was unwilling to take part in any open hostili- 
ties. He has explained the matter himself in a 
letter written to Francesco Sforza on the 27th of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 63 

December, 1469. He informs the Duke of Milan 
of the arrival of an envoy from Venice, asking 
that the republic may have security on the open 
sea and within the French dominions. Louis 
does not care much about the matter; he only 
denies the request because the Venetians are 
hostile to Sforza, and therefore enemies of 
France. He would be glad to know what ought 
to be done. He therefore asks Sforza to dis- 
patch a special envoy, and to send word what the 
Venetians had done about resisting the French 
clauses in the treaty lately concluded at Rome. 
It may be mentioned here that the safe conduct 
was not actually granted to the Venetians until 
1478. This appears by a dispatch sent by the 
Signoria in that year to Giovanni Candida, Secre- 
tary to the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, in 
which it was stated that "of late years the King 
of France had taken several Venetian ships, and 
had repeatedly waylaid the Flanders galleys.' 
Finally Domenico Gradenigo had been sent as an 
ambassador, and the ships and galleys had been 
guaranteed ''without any detrimental conditions." 
In the month of July, 1469, letters were re- 
ceived at Venice from the English consul, Marco 
de Ca, and frorn merchants in the factories of 



64 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

London and Bruges, which stated that "the 
pirate Columbus," evidently meaning Nicolo 
Colombo, was in the Channel with eight ships 
and barges. "There he awaits the Venetian gal- 
leys with intent to damage them, and if the ships 
come singly the mischief might not be limited to 
mere damage." The Senate was convened, and 
a decree passed in haste, directing the consuls in 
London and Bruges to order all Venetian cap- 
tains to put themselves under the orders of Ser 
Zuane Capello, commanding the galleys, and to 
remain in his company until he should be out of 
danger from the corsair. "Should it behove the 
ships to await the galleys, let an average be made 
to defray the costs of demurrage, payable thus: 
one-third by the goods, freight, and tonnage of 
the ships, according to the proper rate, and two- 
thirds by the merchants and freights of the 
galleys." 

In the early part of the year 1470 there were 
more serious alarms about the trading fleet. 
The galleys had arrived at the Downs in the 
spring, under the command of Ser Gabriele Tre- 
visano. By the middle of May they had not yet 
finished loading for the homeward voyage, but 
were expected in a short time to assemble at 



The career of columbu^. 6^ 

Southampton as their place of rendezvous. Thei 
Venetian ambassador in France reported that 
fresh preparations for attack were being made by 
the "pirate Colombo." Moreover, the seas at 
that time were in a very unsafe state. We hear 
incidentally of English corsairs in the Bay of Bis- 
cay, and of "Easterling pirates" off the coast of 
Flanders; the Venetians themselves were in 
trouble with the English about the capture of a 
vessel belonging to one William Cooper off the 
Island of Scio. There seemed also to be some 
likelihood of a war between England and France. 
Edward the Fourth was for the moment in full 
agreement with the king-maker Warwick, who in 
the world of politics was "the mover of both 
wind and tide," and it was suspected that they 
were arming for a descent upon Normandy. 
Should such an invasion take place, attacks 
would doubtless be made by Louis upon any 
neutrals trading with England or carrying her 
goods to the Mediterranean. There was danger 
besides, in any case, from the fact that they were 
"comforting and assisting" Charles the Bold by 
trading with his ports in Flanders. On May the 
17th the matter was debated in the Senate, and 
it was decreed that the ships La Malipiera and 



66 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

La Squarcia should be ordered "instantly to join 
the captain of the Flanders galleys, and to con- 
voy him until he be out of danger from the 
pirate." Should the galleys not have finished 
loading, the ships were to wait for them, and to 
be allowed payment of demurrage from the date 
of their arrival at the Isle of Wight ; and it was 
ordered that the insurances on the ships were not 
to be impugned on account of anything arising 
out of this special service. 

All calculations were upset by the strange 
course of events in England. The Wars of the 
Roses were a wild confusion of alternate victory 
and ruin, of tragedy and farce. "One piece of 
news," men said, "is never like the last; they are 
always as unlike as day is to night." Continual 
treachery was helped by the universal careless- 
ness. The Italians had a proverb that you 
should not let go the man whom you ought 
never to have caught ; but the king-maker 
pushed his puppets up and down, unmindful of 
their chances of revenge. Edward the Fourth 
was one day a prisoner, and the next day was 
hunting with Warwick; in a little while the 
king-maker is overthrown, and Edward is enter- 
ing London in triumph. An outburst of the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 67 

Lancastrians was luckily suppressed at Stamford, 
and it forthwith appeared that the army was all 
for the White Rose; Warwick fled across the 
sea, and with him his newly chosen son-in-law^ 
"the perjured Clarence," soon to betray him 
again, and to plot for a share of his inheritance. 
They crossed with a few ships to Calais, and on 
being repulsed went to meet the French king 
at Amboise. Their best refuge seemed to be 
Dieppe, where they brought a few ships captured 
in the Channel, belonging to subjects of Charles 
the Bold, or to his allies in Brittany. The duke 
demanded instant reparation for the insult ; and 
he pointed out that some of his ships had been 
taken by the fleet which the King of France, 
according to his own account, had collected to 
make war against the English. Louis was ready, 
of course, to appoint commissioners to inquire 
into the matter. Meantime the ships under 
Warwick moved to Grandeville, and afterward to 
Cherbourg. Charles the Bold showed his impa- 
tienc"e of the delay by a letter of May the 29th, 
addressed to the Archbishop of Narbonne and 
the Admiral de Bourbon, in which he complained 
of the proceedings of the French ships, includ- 
ing, as we suppose, the squadron under the 



68 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

"pirate Colombo," and swore by St. George that 
he would soon find a remedy of his own. 

A few days afterward the duke heard that 
Warwick had captured more of his ships, and 
that the Frenchman was about to send an incen- 
diary to destroy the rest of his fleet. He at 
once sent his whole force to the mouth of the 
Seine, under Admiral La Vire ; and here, near 
Chef-de-Caux, they were soon afterward joined 
by men-of-war from England and Brittany. The 
Burgundians were especially strong; the duke 
had found at Ecluse two galleys from Genoa, 
besides a good many Spanish and Portuguese 
ships, and a few German trading boats, which 
were all impressed for his service. 

The Burgundians proceeded to summon the 
English fleet, giving notice at the same time that 
they had no quarrel with the French. The Ad. 
miral de Bourbon replied that in any case there 
must be no fighting in French waters. Mean- 
time every vessel that could be spared was being 
equipped for Warwick's benefit. Ren^ of Pro- 
vence was sparing no trouble or expense to aid 
the cause of his daughter, the exiled Queen Mar- 
garet. Louis himself was superintending the 
business, passing and repassing among the coast 



THE Career of columbus. 6^9 

towns, under his habitual pretext of a pilgrimage 
to Mont St. Michel. According to Polydore 
Vergil, a fairly large fleet and "an army not to 
be despised" were got together in the course of 
the summer. In September it was arranged that 
Warwick and his fleet should shift their quarters 
to Havre, and slip across to England whenever 
the chance arrived. On the night of September 
the 13th a great storm arose. The Burgundians 
were caught and scattered far and wide, some 
toward Scotland, some back toward Flanders and 
Holland. Then the wind veered to the south- 
east. Some say that a fog came on, which puz- 
zled the English commanders in the blockading 
squadron ; others tell us, with greater probabil- 
ity, of a breeze blowing hard for Devonshire. 
Warwick at once sailed out, and made for Dart- 
mouth, where he had left the people, a few 
months before, all well-disposed to the Red Rose 
and old King Henry. The French fleet sailed with 
him as a convoy, under orders to run ahead with- 
out fighting, unless they were actually attacked. 
After a run of nearly three hundred miles they 
passed Torbay and Berry Head, and stood at the 
entrance to the haven ; the great chain was low- 
ered, and they passed in between the castles. 



70 Titk Career of columbus. 

King Edward had been vainly warned of his dan- 
ger. Even after the landing he wrote to Charles 
of Burgundy to come and catch the invaders in 
the trap. But while he was getting his forces 
together the armies of the West came upon him, 
sixty thousand strong, and in a few days he was 
a fugitive, and making for his refuge in Flanders 
again. 

Amid the clash of these great events the 
trouble about the Venetian galleys was forgot- 
ten. We are not told in so many words that 
Colombo and his ships gave up the pursuit for a 
time ; but it is obvious, from what the historians 
have recorded, that the squadron must have 
joined the main French force, and must have 
been blockaded with the rest at the mouth of the 
Seine. It is difficult to suppose that they took 
no part in the expedition to Dartmouth. 

Under the orders of Louis, or of R6n^, or as 
the habitual associates of Coulon, one must sup- 
pose that the younger Colombo and his men 
were made to carry part of Warwick's forces, or 
to help in convoying his fleet. If this be so, it is 
nearly certain that Christopher Columbus must 
have seen the south coast of Devonshire and 
entered the port of Dartmouth. We know, from 



THE CAR&ER OF COLUMBUS. 7 1 

his own words to Ferdinand, that he was in the 
service of Colombo, and fought for him off Cape 
St. Vincent ; and it is expressly stated in his let- 
ters that he had been in England and had seen 
the harbors there, "though he never saw any har- 
bors as good as those which he found in the 
Indies." 

When the galleys were going home in the 
autumn with the ships detailed for their protec- 
tion, they found the enemy awaiting them off 
the coast of Portugal. Creeping past Vigo Bay 
and the broad estuary of the Tagus, they came 
in sight of the bar of Odemira, where Columbus 
afterward saw land at the end of his second voy- 
age ; and the place is memorable for the reason 
that he had used what seemed to be a propheti- 
cal power, and had guessed the longitude by the 
variations of the needle, when all the pilots were 
at fault. Further on there stretched into the sea 
the great wedge-shaped form of Cape St. Vincent, 
the "Sacred Promontory" of the ancient geogra- 
phers, who believed it to be the western extrem- 
ity of the world. Behind the Cape was the 
favorite lurking-place of the "French pirates." 
Here in February, 1477, while Christopher Co- 
lumbus was in the North Sea, his old commander 



72 THE Career of columbus. 

waited for the galleys and a crowd of merchant- 
men from Cadiz. Here, too, on the 2ist of 
August, 1485, the four galleys, sailing this time 
from Cadiz without protection, "fell in with 
Colombo, that is to say, Nicolo Griego, captain 
of seven armed ships under the flag of King 
Charles of France," or, according to a fuller de- 
scription in a letter from King Ferdinand to 
Henry the Seventh, "met Columbus, the vice 
admiral of the French seas and commander of 
the navy of the most Christian king." At day- 
break they came to blows, and the battle, which 
ended in the capture of all the galleys, lasted as 
we are told "from the first hour of the day till 
the twentieth." The Venetians threatened re- 
prisals, but the matter soon subsided in a long 
negotiation. A few years afterward, the admiral 
himself had to change his course on his third voy- 
age across the Atlantic, in order to avoid an 
attack from the French ships hovering off the 
cape. Some time afterward the "French pi- 
rates" had a great success in capturing a Portu- 
guese trader passing near the cape with a cargo 
of gold, ivory, and African merchandise from the 
Gold Coast. The King of Portugal was not so 
peaceful as the Venetians had shown themselves. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 73 

He threatened instant war, unless both ship and 
cargo were restored ; and when everything was 
given up, except one gray parrot, he again threat- 
ened war until the French king gave back the 
parrot at last, and so averted a catastrophe. 

The picturesque and fervid account of the 
action of 1470, in which Christopher Columbus 
took part, must have come, one would think, 
from the admiral's own lips, in the very words 
reported by Don Ferdinand. The narrative is 
no way injured by the error which the biographer 
made in thinking that the later battle, described 
by the Venetian writers, was that in which his 
father had been engaged. After speaking of 
Colombo the Younger, he proceeds as follows: 
"I say that while the admiral sailed with the 
aforesaid Colombo el Mozo, which was a long 
time, it fell out that, hearing of the galleys com- 
ing from Flanders, they went out to look for 
them, and found them near Cape St. Vincent. 
Then falling to blows, they fought furiously, and 
grappled and beat one another from ship to ship 
with rage and fury, with their pikes and hand 
grenades and other fiery artillery; and so after 
they had fought from matins to vespers, and 
many had been killed, the fire seized on my 



74 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

father's ship and also on one of the great galleons. 
Now they were grappled together, with iron 
hooks and chains such as sailors use, and neither 
of them could get free because of the confusion 
and fear of the fire ; and the fire soon grew so 
great that the only hope was for all who could to 
leap into the water, and to die quick rather than 
face the torment of the flames. But the admiral 
being an excellent swimmer, and seeing himself 
about two leagues from land, laid hold of an oar 
which Fortune offered him, and sometimes rest- 
ing on it and sometimes swimming, it pleased 
God, who was preserving him for greater ends, to 
give him strength to get to land, but so tired and 
spent with the water that he had much ado to 
recover himself." 

The story now concludes: "It was not far 
from Lisbon, where he knew that there were 
many Genoese, and he went there as fast as he 
could ; and being recognized by his friends, he 
was so courteously received and entertained that 
he set up house and married a wife in that city." 



CHAPTER V. 

" Sanguine he was. But a less vivid hue 
Than of that islet in the chestnut bloom 
Flamed in his cheek ; and eager eyes, that still 
Took joyful note of all things joyful, beamed 
Beneath a mane-like mass of rolling gold." 

Columbus was about twenty-four years old 
when he settled at Lisbon. Some rumors of the 
world's admiration of his fine appearance and 
vigorous mind have come down to our times. 
He was gifted with the physical strength, the 
subtle intelligence, and the instinctive love of the 
sea which antiquity attributed to the Ligurians. 
He had little other resemblance to their dark and 
slender race. He bore the signs of descent from 
a Teutonic stock, being light-haired and fair, like 
one of the Lombard warriors on the frescoes in 
the Palace of Theodolind. Both his sons, as well 
as the historian Herrera who was in possession of 
many of his documents, have said that he was of 
a comely presence. He was tall and large 
of limb. His face was long, with an aquiline nose ; 
the cheeks rather full, "neither large nor lean," 

75 



76 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

according to Don Ferdinand ; he had a very 
clear complexion, with a ruddy glow and bright 
patches of red ; his eyes were of a bluish gray ; 
his hair and beard were red in his youth, but 
they lost their color and became gray before he 
was thirty years old. 

There are many portraits of Columbus, but 
none which have been absolutely accepted as 
genuine ; and we have probably no means of 
recovering the outline of any original from which 
subsequent copies may be taken to have de- 
scended. According to an ancient tradition in 
Spain, the admiral's portrait was taken at Seville, 
after his return from the second voyage. Nava- 
rete has shown that, if this were so, the artist 
must have been Antonio del Rincon, who Avas at 
that time attached to the court of King Ferdi- 
nand ; but the fact that he was painted still 
remains to be proved. There are two portraits 
in Spain to which a high antiquity is attributed, 
the one now in the Arsenal at Carthagena, and 
the other belonging to the admiral's descendants. 
The latter is very like the ancient bust of Colum- 
bus at Madrid, and may possibly have been taken 
from it. A copy of it was prefixed to Navarete's 
work as being that which the family have consid- 



T-HE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 77 

ered to be nearest to the truth. The portrait in 
the National^Library at Madrid has been so 
much repainted that it is difificult to guess at its 
original appearance ; but there is some reason to 
think that it may have been copied from an 
Itah"an version. 

A pecuHar interest attaches to a set of por- 
traits derived from an original which once be- 
longed to Paolo Giovio and was exhibited in his 
museum at Como. The learned Bishop of No- 
cera made the first great collection of portraits. 
His method is explained in his own delightful 
descriptions of the gallery. In dealing with the 
great men of antiquity, he had recourse to like- 
nesses on coins and to old statues; in the case of 
famous Italians, he copied the figures on tombs 
and monuments. Sometimes, as when dealing 
with the leading jurists, he found a set of por- 
traits ready to his hand in one of the small local 
collections. Other pictures were copied for him 
at Rome, Florence, and Milan. Sometimes he 
was able to secure the work of the great masters 
themselves. His "Solyman the Magnificent" 
was a replica of the picture painted by Gentile 
Bellini, in fear and trembling, at Constantinople. 
His "Matthias Corvinus" was by Andrea Man- 



78 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

tegna. Giulio Romano had delivered over to the 
museum the heads from Bramantino's frescoes, 
which RafTaelle himself had copied in the Vati- 
can. We find him writing to Aretino for another 
portrait, this time to be taken by Titian. He 
usually tells us the source from which he ob- 
tained his treasures. The set of Turkish Sultans, 
for instance, was a present to the King of France 
from the pirate Barbarossa; the likeness of the 
last Sultan of Egypt was copied from the picture 
taken at the storming of Cairo; the lineaments 
of "Scanderbeg" had been compared with the 
face of his descendant as he lay dead on the bat- 
tlefield at Ravenna. ^ 

The bishop himself had seen Tristan d'Acun- 
ha at Rome, and could vouch for the excellence 
of his likeness, as well as for the truth to nature 
of the figures of Tristan's elephant and rhinoc- 
eros, which were depicted in the entrance hall. 

The museum itself stood on a promontory 
opposite to a little island, just beyond the en" 
trance to the harbor of Como. The island has 
been reclaimed, and the whole site is now taken 
into the town. From the terrace on the north- 
ern front the visitor came into a spacious hall 
with open porticoes, and rooms on all sides filled 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 79 

with statues or pictures. The upper gallery was 
used for the historical portraits, and here, in the 
series of heroes and warriors, was hung the fine 
picture of Columbus of which mention has al- 
ready been made. It was set in a frame carved 
with emblems of maritime discovery, and con- 
taining the figures of an Ethiopian king and of 
an Indian in a garment of parrots' feathers. At- 
tached to it was a parchment scroll containing 
the eulogy on the admiral, together with a some- 
what inaccurate account of the celebrated voy- 
ages, from which a few sentences may be taken. 
"Here is that Christopher Columbus, the discov- 
erer of a wonderful world unknown to any age 
before ; whom we may believe to have been born 
under the benign influence of fortunate stars, to 
be an incomparable honor to Liguria, a choice 
adornment of Italy, a flaming light of our age, 
and that he might outshine the fame of the 
heroes of old. Columbus from his first youth 
was given up, like all his countrymen, to naviga- 
tion, and traveled to all the marts and islands 
and shores of the Mediterranean Sea; and, as 
one vehemently given to geography, he turned 
all the strength of his deep-searching mind to the 
contemplation of all matters and regions in the 



8o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

terrestrial sphere, and that with such spirit and 
force as to learn from astronomy the measures of 
the tropics and equator and the various zones, as 
well as the exact use of the compass and the 
whole chart of the sea; and he predicted, with no 
vain conjecture, that quite new lands lay under the 
western sun, whereof, indeed, Plato himself and 
Seneca, and other Greeks and Romans, had left 
certain arguments to be weighed and' considered 
by the cosmographers." The inscription ended 
by recommending the Genoese to set up a statue 
of the discoverer of a world, though in that day 
they had the character of admiring the present 
and rather underrating the past. 

Paolo Giovio was a contemporary of Colum- 
bus, having been born in 1483. But he can 
hardly have begun making his collection till after 
1527, the year of the sack of Rome, in which he 
lost all his possessions. It is said that he closed 
his historical series in 1544, when his dying 
brother Benedetto was gratified by being added 
to the persons there commemorated. Paolo him- 
self died in 1552. The portraits were hurriedly 
copied by Cristofano dell' Altissimo and others 
working under him ; and the copies are still to be 
§een in the Ufifizi Gallery at Florence. Almost 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 8 1 

all the portraits appear in the woodcuts to the 
volumes of "Elogia," published by Peter Pera at 
Basle in 1575 and 1577, and reprinted in 1578 
after a closer examination of the original. Ros- 
coe states, in his "Life of Pope Leo," that the 
collections as made by Paolo Giovio were long 
preserved in the College of the Holy Rosary at 
Venice, the seal of the college being affixed to 
the back of every picture. We learn that on 
their dispersal he acquired many of them for his 
own collection ; but nothing is stated by him as 
to the fate of the admiral's portrait. A discov- 
ery has lately been made at Como which may 
throw some light on the question. A portrait of 
Columbus in his old age has been found among 
the heirlooms of the Giovio family by Dr. De 
Orchi, its present representative. It differs 
considerably from the Florentine picture, but 
might perhaps have been the original from which 
Perna's woodcut was derived. Paolo Giovio may 
very well have had two portraits of his favorite 
hero ; but it is important to observe, in any case, 
that he refrains from saying where he procured 
the painting to which the text of his biographical 
narrative was attached. 

Returning to Columbus at Lisbon, we must 



82 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

now notice a curious mistake that has crept into 
some of the biographies, to the effect that his 
brother Bartholomew was aheady estabHshed 
there, and was celebrated as a famous geogra- 
pher; and that Christopher Columbus thereupon 
proceeded to learn map-making from him and all 
the science and information which led to the dis- 
covery of America. 

It was one of the thirteen lies, to use Don 
Ferdinand's rough phrase, which Giustiniani 
crammed on to a sheet of paper when he set 
about illustrating the Psalter, that the admiral 
went to Lisbon to learn cosmography from his 
brother: "which was quite the contrary, because 
the admiral lived in that city first, and afterward 
taught the brother everything he knew." 

Giustiniani had taken the story from Antonio 
Gallo of Genoa, who wrote an account of the dis- 
covery during the admiral's lifetime, after reading 
the letters in which the voyages were originally 
described. As a matter of fact, Bartholomew 
was not in Portugal in the year 1470, nor for 
more than ten years afterward. How then, it 
may be asked, did the mistake arise? The mat- 
ter is interesting, as showing the kind of igno- 
rance among educated men with which Columbus 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 83 

had so often to contend, when he discussed his 
projects and theories, again and again, in fruitless 
conference. 

Gallo was all the time confusing Don Bartholo- 
mew with Ptolemy, or "Tolomeo," the ancient 
geographer of Alexandria. He thought that 
Columbus was referring to instruction received 
from his brother when he was discussing the 
measurements in maps of the second century, or 
was declaring his preference for the still older 
views of Marinus of Tyre. One example will 
serve to illustrate the point. It has reference to 
the position of the ancient city of Cattigara, on 
the eastern confines of India. Marinus had 
placed it in a certain position of eastern longi- 
tude, and in the same latitude as the mouths of 
the Indus. This fixed point of Martnus had 
been altered by Ptolemy, who thought that he 
had corrected his master's measurement by 
bringing it thirty degrees nearer to Africa. 

When Columbus saw the eclipse at Evangelista 
near Cuba, as mentioned m his Jamaica letter, he 
thought that he had reached the fixed point indi- 
cated by Marinus, and had therefore arrived at 
India, and had joined the map of his own route 
to the map of the world as known to the an- 



84 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

cients. He was on the 24th parallel of latitude 
and "in the 9th hour" of western longitude, so 
that he must be near the city in question. Now 
Gallo goes into all these details, quoting the 
words of the admiral's letter, and concludes that 
Columbus had reached the point indicated by 
Ptolemy "only two hours east of that place 
which Bartholomaeus called Cattigara, and consid- 
ered to be the last inhabited region of the East." 
For such reasons he describes Don Bartholomew 
as a very celebrated cosmographer, "whose charts 
showed by just lines and proportions all the seas 
and ports, and the shores, gulfs, and islands"; 
and he credits the younger brother with showing 
to Christopher, as a practical sailor, how he must 
follow the Portuguese track along the coast of 
Africa, and then turn to the right, and then, sail- 
ing always toward the West, he must arrive at 
the continent beyond the ocean. 

The biography tells us how courteously Colum- 
bus was received by the Italian merchants in Lis- 
bon, and how his reputation was increased when 
it was found that "he behaved honorably, and 
did nothing but what was just." There is natu- 
rally but little information as to the names of 
those who assisted him and helped him to set up 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. §5 

in business. It has been thought, however, that 
some indications may be gathered from the 
death-bed codicil, in which his son Don Diego 
was told to pay certain legacies to persons whom 
his father had known in Lisbon, or to the repre- 
sentatives of such of them as were then dead, 
and make the payment in such a way that no 
one might know from whom the benefit came. 
It has been suggested, indeed, that these gifts 
may have been repayments of outstanding com- 
mercial debts, or of debts at least binding in 
honor; but it seems more probable, from what is 
known of his character, that they were recogni- 
tions of the kindness which he had received dur- 
ing the early part of his career in Portugal. 

We find in this list the names of several Geno- 
ese merchants who were trading at Lisbon in the 
year 1482, the date to which the codicil specially 
refers, and of other Italians, connected with that 
city, whom the admiral may have known at an 
earlier period. There is a gift to the heirs of one 
"Antonio Vazo" of Genoa, whose name should 
be "Tobazo," according to the researches insti- 
tuted by Mr. Harrisse. There is also a small 
legacy of twenty ducats, or their value, to the 
representatives of Geronimo del Puerto of Genoa, 



86 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

who was the father of Benito del Puerto, after- 
ward Chancellor of the City. A legacy of 30,000 
reals, equivalent to about seventy-five dollars, 
was bequeathed to the heirs of Centurione 
Scotto Luigi, a member of a family that still 
flourishes at Genoa. Another gift of a hundred 
ducats went to the heirs of Paolo de Negro of 
the same place. Baptista Spinola, belonging to a 
noble family established near Alessandria, was to 
receive twenty ducats; and, finally, there was a 
bequest of eight ounces of silver in favor of the 
old Jew "who used to live close to the gate of 
the Jewry in Lisbon." 



CHAPTER VI. 

" If I had a friend that loved her, 
I should but teach him how to tell my story, 
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake ; 
She loved me for the dangers I had passed, 
And I loved her that she did pity them ; 
This only is the witchcraft I have used. 
Here comes the lady. Let her witness it." 

Philippa Moniz, the hero's beautiful and 
courageous wife, came of a race that loved the 
sea. Her father, Perestrello, was one of the 
great explorers who had found again the lost 
islands of the Atlantic. To her family belonged 
the government of the new colony at Porto 
Santo. Some of her nearest relations were com- 
panions of Vasco da Gama, and took part in the 
Portuguese expeditions to India and China. 

Like Columbus himself she belonged to the 
fair Lombard race. She was a descendant of 
Gabriel Pallastrelli, one of the best-born nobles 
of Piacenza, and through his marriage she 
claimed alliance with the line of the fighting 
Bracciforti. Gabriel's son, Philip Pallastrelli, had 

87 



BS THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

married a kinswoman of the Visconti reigning at 
Milan; and he was Philippa's grandfather, after 
whom she was named. When all the bold adven- 
turers went out to Portugal to take part in the 
maritime discoveries, Philip followed with the 
rest, and became naturalized there under the 
name of Perestrello. 

His family seems to have prospered in its new 
home. Raphael, his elder son, became the head 
of a branch that still flourishes in Lisbon. Bar- 
tholomew, the father of our Donna Philippa, was 
brought up at the court of Prince Henry and 
became one of his bravest captains. Philippa's 
aunt was married to the statesman Pedro de 
Naranhos, and their son was Archbishop of Lis- 
bon at the time of which we are writing. 

When Columbus came to Portugal, Philippa's 
father had been dead for about twelve years. 
Her mother had a house at Lisbon, but the 
young lady held a somewhat independent posi- 
tion. Either through her father's merits, or by 
the favor of her cousin the Archbishop, she was 
a "cavaliera," or dame, in one of the knightly 
orders, with a home, if she pleased, in the rich 
Convent of All Saints. Here, it is said, she used 
to sing in the chapel choir. The young Genoese 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 89 

found his way to the same church and became con- 
stant in his attendance at the service. She noticed 
his fine figure and handsome appearance, and soon 
permitted him to make a closer acquaintance. 

O tre fiate avventurosa figlia 

Di Perestrello ! ti condusse amore 

Ad incontrar I'eroe. 

To some of her prosperous relations an alliance 
between Philippa and an Italian adventurer must 
have been extremely distasteful. He was clever 
enough, and able to keep himself with his charts 
and scrolls ; but, after all, he was nothing but a 
foreign captain who had lost his ship, and had 
joined the crowd of adventurers full of rich 
promises and fantastic inventions. 

The lady had inherited a strong will. Her 
father, we know, was dead, and he had left her a 
plantation in his island of Porto Santo. She ad- 
mired the brave spirit of Columbus, and shared 
in his fervid dreams ; and "she was so taken with 
him," says the biographer, "that she soon became 
his wife." 

Columbus found that he was introduced to a 
host of new friends and relations. Philippa had 
much to tell him of her father's exploits, and of 
her young brother serving in Africa, who would 



90 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

soon be taking over his governorship. Her 
father had been twice married. She had three 
half-sisters, the children of Donna Beatrix Fur- 
tada. These were Kate and Beatrix and Iseult, 
"Queen Iseult, at Porto Santo," whose husband 
was Pedro Correa, the governor, or rather, per- 
haps, the acting-governor, ready to give up the 
post to young Bartholomew as soon as he was of 
age to take it. She had sisters of her own. The 
name of one of them appears in the last will of 
Don Diego, the second viceroy, who left a good 
legacy to his "Aunt Brigulaga." We know that 
one of her sisters was married to a Spanish gen- 
tleman named Mulia, residing at Huelva, with 
whom Columbus took refuge when he fled from 
Portugal. Her home, by a curious chance, was 
near the pine woods that enfold the monastery 
of La Rabida, where the admiral found peace 
and good counsel ; and it looked out over the 
Port of Palos, across the red bar of Saltes, where 
he sailed out with his little fleet on the first night 
of his great adventure. 

Philippa's mother was Donna Isabel Moniz, 
one of the children of Gil Moniz, a man of good 
family from Algarete, who had raised himself 
from the position of a secretary to a place of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 91 

some dignity and importance. Several members 
of his family are mentioned in the Portuguese 
records. He had three sons, Diogo, Vasco, and 
Ruy, and a daughter Guiomar, who was married 
to Don Diaz de Lemos before Columbus and 
Philippa became acquainted. Philippa's uncle 
Diogo was one of the guardians of her brother's 
estate. The other uncles were very busy about 
a family lawsuit that began in the year before 
her engagement. Her grandfather, Gil Moniz, 
had endowed a private chapel and vault in the 
Carmelite monastery, and it was clear that no one 
out of his direct line was intended to use the 
vault. But the Prior had unjustly allowed a 
stranger to be buried there ; and the family 
hoped and believed, quite rightly, as the event 
turned out, that they would obtain a plain decree 
that the lineage of Gil Moniz alone had the right 
of interment. The chapel and all its monuments 
were long ago swallowed up in the pit of the 
great earthquake; but the family tradition re- 
mains that Donna Isabel was buried there, and 
that Philippa's body rested for a time in the 
vault before her son, the heir of Columbus, 
removed them to the famous tomb in the cathe- 
dral church of San Domingo, 



92 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Philippa could tell many a story of the lonely 
rock of Porto Santo where her childhood had been 
spent. When Perestrello died in 1457, Donna 
Isabel was glad to take her children home, and to 
leave her son-in-law Correa to look after the plan- 
tations and to keep up the dignity of a court and 
colony in miniature. The children, we suppose, 
would be as tired as herself of the long white bay 
and the huddled crowd of sand hills, with here 
and there a peak of basalt, or a cliff with staring 
expanses of lava. There was nothing to be seen 
on the island, except the new sugar mills and the 
vineyards where the vines were pegged down a 
few inches from the ground. You might see 
rabbits in multitudes among the sand hills, and 
there were armies of rats and lizards to feed upon 
the grapes. The former pest, indeed, had nearly 
destroyed the colony when it was first estab- 
lished. Perestrello himself had turned out a lit- 
ter of tame rabbits, and the rash experiment had 
resulted in a total destruction of the crops. 
Nothing seemed to thrive there except dragon 
trees, and even these had become scarce. It was 
said that there had been thousands of them when 
the island was first discovered; and Philippa's 
father had hoped to become rich by selling the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 93 

gum, which some people called "cinnabar" from 
its red color, and others "dragon's blood" ; and 
there was a story about an Eastern gum of the 
same nature being drawn from the blood of an 
Indian serpent. The fruit was used in fattening 
pigs ; it looked like a yellow cherry, but was 
rather bitter in taste. Only a few of the trees 
were left. There had been some with trunks 
large enough to make a boat for six or seven 
men ; but they had been cut down for all kinds 
of uses, whenever a man wanted "wood for a 
shield, or a bushel for his corn." 

When the marriage took place the young 
couple went to live with Donna Isabel. Colum- 
bus set to work in earnest at map-making, and 
his wife soon found that she was able to do a 
great deal in assisting her husband. Her mother 
became a close ally, and encouraged her son-in- 
law to persevere in the path which his courage 
had marked out. The widowed lady was fond of 
talking about her husband as "a great seafaring 
man," and she knew all about the compact of the 
three captains that had led to the settlement of 
Madeira. Everyone had heard of Tristram Vaz, 
who ruled the province of Machico, and of old 
2^arco, called "Camara dos Lobos," who till within 



94 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

a few mojiths past kad been carried out every 
morning at Funchal into the sunshine, "to hear 
complaints and to administer justice." 

Madeira was said to rank next to Britain as "a 
princess of the islands in the ocean." Whatever 
can be known about its ancient history is of 
some importance still, because the finding of each 
stepping-stone in the Atlantic had a bearing 
upon the discovery of America. Madeira and 
her twin colony are thought to have been the 
"purple islands" described by King Juba, the 
country where the great Sertorius had longed to 
dwell, "far from the noise of war and free from 
the troubles of government." Here was the land 
where the Spaniards in old times had placed the 
fabled gardens of Alcinous, where the fruit never 
fades nor perishes, "but pear upon pear waxes 
old, and apple upon apple." It might be worth 
while to go back to one ancient authority, and to 
investigate the obscure question whether Ma- 
deira was not the subject of one of the enigmati- 
cal descriptions in the cosmography of yEthicus. 
The matter would, at any rate, have a bearing on 
Humboldt's strange theory that the dragon trees 
in the Atlantic islands were introduced by mer- 
chants from India, This cosmography, as the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 95 

work now stands, professes to be the abstract, by 
a priest named Hieronymus, of a philosopher's 
travels between Thule and the Earthly Paradise. 
It is based in fact on the romantic "Life of Apol- 
lonius," compiled in the reign of Nero ; but it 
is plain that its later editor intended to assume 
the name and authority of St. Jerome. The aid 
of ^thicus was commonly invoked when the 
marvels of geography ran short. Roger Bacon 
was blamed for drawing from this source ; and its 
influence may be easily traced in the book of 
Mandeville and the writings of Olaus Magnus. 
The philosopher is represented as coming from 
the East to an island in the temperate zone, the 
last place reached before he arrived at Cadiz. 
He was wrecked upon an uninhabited island ; 
and some parts of its description are appropriate 
to Madeira. We read of an abundance of tama- 
risks, and of trees with bark and fruit as bitter as 
aloes. On the shore, the traveler found shoals 
of little creatures "quilled like porcupines" ; and 
he met with a "multitude of sirens." He seems 
to have been referring to the sea-urchins that are 
seen in great numbers on some parts of the coast 
of Madeira ; and his "sirens" remind us strongly 
of the monk sealsj or sea wolves, afterward found 



96 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

in the same neighborhood, near the cave called 
the "Camara dos Lobos." When the Portuguese 
explorers first came to this spot, they reached a 
recess where a troop of these seals ran down into 
the sea. Zarco himself took a title from the 
adventure, and became Count Camara dos Lobos, 
with a new coat of arms and two sea wolves for 
its supporters. The description by ^Ethicus con- 
cluded with his account of the ascent of a great 
mountain by steps and galleries, "along the 
southern side of a chasm with terrible shelves 
and crags" ; and this might almost be taken as a 
reminiscence of the precipices of the Grand 
Coural. 

Coming now to the mediaeval period, it should 
be noted that explorers from Normandy, from 
Catalonia, and from Genoa had, in fact, long pre- 
ceded the Portuguese in many of their African 
discoveries. Madeira itself, under a name of 
equivalent meaning, and Porto Santo, under the 
name which it still bears, and even the desert 
rocks in that neighborhood, had been inscribed 
about the year 135 1 in the Italian and Catalan 
maps. The expedition of Bethencourt, with a 
fleet from Normandy, to take possession of the 
Canaries, made it certain that the two islands to 



TTHE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 9l 

the northward would soon become generally 
known. Long lost, and then found for a time 
and lost again, they were finally added to the 
civilized world by Perestrello and his two com- 
panions. 

According to his widow's simple story, he had 
set out to discover new countries with his com- 
rades Joam Zarco and Tristram Vaz, and they 
had agreed among themselves to cast lots for 
the first choice of all that they might find. On 
reaching the islands, which, in Donna Isabel's 
opinion, had never before been discovered, they 
divided the larger country into the provinces of 
Machico and Funchal, which fell to her husband's 
comrades. "Porto Santo," she said, "was Peres- 
trello's share, and he held the government till he 
died." 

The discovery was in reality a result of the 
attempts to pass Cape Bojador and to reach the 
rich coast of Senegambia. Prince Henry the 
Navigator had for many years been trying to 
open a new passage to the East. He knew all 
the ancient traditions of Phoenicians sailing round 
Lybia, and of the fleets of Carthage pushing into 
the torrid zone, and how Eudoxus had sailed for 
India from Cadiz "with doctors and workmen 



9§ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

and dancing girls." But the Portuguese sailors 
were discouraged by constant failure, and feared 
to pass a barrier from which there might be no 
returning. 

A determined attempt was made in 1419 by 
Zarco, then a young follower of Prince Henry, 
who had already distinguished himself at the 
siege of Ceuta. He failed to. pass Cape Boja- 
dor, and was tossed about for many days in a 
storm, until at last he saw the basaltic peaks of 
Porto Santo, and anchored in its long sandy bay. 

Next year an expedition was sent to look out 
for the island and to explore the seas in its 
neighborhood. This seems to be the joint 
undertaking described by Donna Isabel to Colum- 
bus as that in which her husband was engaged. 
Their old pilot, who had been a captive among 
the Moors, had heard something about Madeira 
from certain English galley-slaves. These men 
had, according to their own story, been driven 
there in 1347, when the unfortunate Robert 
Machin fled from England with the rich Anne 
d'Urfey, and they had been obliged to leave the 
lovers to die on the shore of the Gulf of Cedars. 
The old tradition was confirmed by the appear- 
ance on the horizon of a black cloud that never 



THE CAkEER OF COLUMBUS. 90 

changed its outline. But the sailors were reluc- 
tant to cross the stretch of open water. Some 
feared that the cloud was the covering of a pit of 
fire. Others admitted that it might be Cipango, 
or the long-lost Land of the Seven Cities. The 
pilot, on the other hand, maintained that what 
they saw was a rain cloud attracted by the forests 
in a range of mountains. The opposition to his 
argument reminds us of the difficulties encoun- 
tered by Columbus. "This pilot," they said, "is 
a foreigner from Castile, and he is only too anx- 
ious to injure us Portuguese" ; and they thought 
it quite enough to be prepared to fight with men, 
without entering on a contest with the forces of 
nature. Zarco, as one of the crew remarked, 
"had enough courage for all," and he set out one 
morning to find the shadow on the sea. A thick 
fog came on, and there was a terrible noise of 
breakers ; as they passed the Desertas, where a 
tall rock loomed like a ship, the sailors cried out 
that an armed giant was rising from the waves. 
When they got near Madeira the cloud began to 
roll up, and they saw red cliffs and the low black 
promontory of San Lorenzo, and a broad forest 
with trees crowding to the water's edge and fill- 
the glens and ravines. 



100 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

No regular attempt was made to erect a colony 
at Porto Santo till the year 1425, and even then 
it had to be abandoned for a time owing to the 
destruction caused by the rabbits. The colony 
was finally established in 1446, when it had been 
determined to use Madeira and Porto Santo as 
sugar islands. 

"The admiral," says his son, "was much de- 
lighted to hear such voyages and relations," and 
was particularly interested in learning about the 
later discoveries in Senegambia and the seas 
beyond Cape Verde. Donna Isabel brought out 
from her family treasures her husband's box of pa- 
pers, with all his old sea charts and memoranda, 
and a description of what he found at Porto 
Santo; and we are told that by this "the admiral 
was still more inflamed." We know something 
of the contents of these papers from Cadamosto's 
account of a visit paid by him to Perestrello 
about the year 1445. The most valauble produc- 
tion of the island at that time was the lichen 
called the "archil," or orchilla weed. Of this 
there were two kinds, the darker and better sort 
being found inland, and the lighter kind on rocks 
by the sea. The plant is thought to have been 
the source of the "Gstulian purple" of the an- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. tot 

cients. It produces a lilac dye, but it is gener- 
ally used as a mordant for brightening other 
colors. It it said that, when the Canaries were 
first occupied, this orchilla weed was collected as 
eagerly as the American gold was afterward gath- 
ered by the Spaniards. Porto Santo has a good 
soil for corn in the calcareous strata which rise 
above the sand drifts; but a great part of the 
island remained useless until the new industries 
of wine-making and sugar-boiling were intro- 
duced by Prince Henry. He brought a stock of 
canes from Sicily, and plants of the Malmsey 
vine from Candia; and the trade thus started 
almost at once attained to a surprising prosper- 
ity. Madeira became a special center of the 
sugar trade. As soon as this took place the 
sugars of Sicily and the Levant fell to a very low 
price ; and, according to the Venetian archives, 
it was not long before "there arrived annually at 
Venice five or six ships freighted with Madeira 
sugar," with a cargo in some cases of five hun- 
dred butts at a time. Sugar was also produced 
to a large extent in the Canary Islands. Scilla- 
cio mentions the supplies of sugar which Colum- 
bus purchased at the Grand Canary on starting 
for the second voyage. It was of excellent qual- 



i02 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ity : "This is the sugar that used to come from 
Arabia and India, taken like gum from the 
canes ; it is very white and brittle, and some peo- 
ple say that it is the Indian salt of the physi- 
cians." Columbus mentions the subject in his 
Memoranda of 1494, where he remarks: "It will 
be very useful to get from Madeira fifty pipes of 
molasses, which is the best and wholesomest food 
in the world ; a pipe usually costs two ducats, 
besides the cost of the butt, and if their High- 
nesses would order one of the caravels to return 
by way of Madeira she might buy the molasses, 
and also take in ten butts of sugar, of which we 
are in great need." 

There are other passages in the admiral's jour- 
nal that seem to refer to the papers which he 
studied with his wife and her mother at Lisbon. 
He remarks, for instance, in his journal for De- 
cember, 1492, that he knew how the Portuguese 
had owed their discoveries to observing the flight 
of birds ; and this was his reason for his memora- 
ble turn toward the southwest, so as to follow 
the birds returning home at sunset. Everyone 
knows the picturesque notices throughout the 
first voyage on the flight of the sea swallows, the 
boobies, and the tropic birds, and the supposed 



tiJE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. I63 

distances at which each species might be found 
away from land. He seems to have had a great 
store of notes upon the habits of animals. 
When they met with a sperm whale on the same 
voyage, the admiral said that these creatures 
always stayed near land ; and the little swimming 
crab found upon the gulf weed could not, it was 
thought, be more than "thirty leagues from 
home." The approach to San Salvador itself 
was heralded by the appearance of a great green 
fish, "of the sort that goes not far from the 
rocks." Soon after starting for home the ad- 
miral announced the neighborhood of new 
islands on seeing a fish swim round the ship and 
suddenly dart toward the southwest ; and only a 
few hours before that, he had said, of a passing 
shoal of tunnies, that they appeared to be mak- 
ing straight for a certain nobleman's fishery in 
Spain. 

We do not suppose that Columbus attached 
undue importance to the calculations and memo- 
randa, the scraps of navigation and weather wis- 
dom, which Perestrello's widow had preserved. 
But, as Don Ferdinand said, "however it was, as 
one thing leads to another, he began to think 
that, as the Portuguese traveled so far to the 



io4 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

south, it were no less proper to sail away to the 
west" ; and for greater certainty he took to look- 
ing over the cosmographers again, and to seek 
for astronomical reasons in support of his view. 
His own papers show that he now proceeded to 
collect all available information, especially from 
the reports of sailors, to justify the conclusion 
that there were many lands west of the Canaries, 
and "by such mean arguments to support so vast 
an undertaking." 

By this time Philippa's brother had grown up, 
and was ready to assume the captaincy of Porto 
Santo. He had served in an African campaign, 
and had shown some capacity of government. 
Accordingly in the month of March, 1473, the 
temporary appointment of Pedro Correa came to 
an end, and the young Bartholomew was made 
head of the colony, with all the profits of salt 
dues, mill tolls, monopolies and privileges which 
his father and uncle had enjoyed. 

Pedro Correa, with his wife Iseult, who called 
herself "Hizeu Perestrella," soon afterward re- 
turned to Lisbon, and made acquaintance with 
their new brother-in-law. Correa had much to 
say about the signs of new land in the west. 
Porto Santo lies within the influence of that 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 105 

returning current of the Gulf Stream, which 
sweeps downward past the Azores and brings 
flotsam from tropical America to the western 
coasts of Europe. A pilot named Martin Vin- 
cente had been more than four hundred leagues 
out from Cape St. Vincent, and had found a 
piece of floating wood, curiously carved, but 
apparently not cut with any tool of metal, "and, 
the wind having been long in the west, he 
thought it must have come from some island out 
that way." This story was fully confirmed by 
Correa, who declared that he had seen another 
piece of wood of the same kind brought by west- 
erly winds to Porto Santo. Nay, more, he had 
found great canes afloat, "and they were so big 
that every joint would hold a gallon of wine.' 
If this were doubted, the canes might be seen at 
Lisbon at that very time, for they had been sent 
to the king as a curiosity. On inquiry being 
made, the statement was found to be quite true. 
The king himself showed Columbus the canes, 
"and there being no place in our parts where 
such things grow, he looked upon it as certain 
that the wind had brought them from some 
island, or perhaps from India." 

These things seem to have had a great influ- 



lo6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ence on Columbus. What discoveries might not 
be made if they were all living at Porto Santo, 
especially as his young brother-in-law was the 
new governor, and his wife the owner of a plan- 
tation ! Why should they not go back to Donna 
Isabel's old home, set as it were in the busy 
track of commerce, and on the direct line to the 
new African conquests? The plan was sensible, 
and was easily carried out. Columbus and his 
wife set up their home for some years in the 
island, and here their son Diego was born. 
Porto Santo was a place of call for merchants, 
where maps and charts might easily be sold ; and 
it was a convenient center from which Columbus 
could start on his yearly voyages, to the Medi- 
terranean or the Azores, or the North Sea, as the 
case might be, while his wife remained at home 
to look after their little estate. 



CHAPTER VII. 

" And all the place is peopled with sweet airs : 
The light, clear element which the isle wears 
Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, 
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers. 
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; 
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep." 

Columbus was deeply interested in the tales 
of Tyre and Carthage about the discovery in 
ancient times of fertile islands in the ocean and 
half-submerged tracts of ooze and sand. Col- 
ored as they were with romance, and distorted 
into many versions in their long descent, so as 
hardly to be distinguishable from the fictions of 
which they became the base, there was still a 
great vitality in the legends of the Hesperides 
and of the fruitful country of Antilla. This last, 
indeed, was marked on all the maps. In Tosca- 
nelli's chart there was a space of no more than 
225 leagues between Antilla, or the Land of the 
Seven Cities, and Cipango, off the coast of 
Cathay, where the palaces were roofed with gold. 
Columbus observed that the Portuguege had 

xoy 



lo8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

placed this country about two hundred leagues 
west of the Azores, and that, according to their 
belief, seven bishops had gone with a crowd of fol- 
lowers, when Spain was conquered by the Moors, 
and had each of them built a city ; and so he 
hoped that, before he came to India, he should 
find "some well placed island or continent, from 
whence he might the better pursue his main 
design." 

The older forms of the tradition were accepted 
on the authority of the "Book of Wonders," at 
that time attributed to Aristotle, and of a long 
and flowery description contained in the collec- 
tions of Diodorus. It is probable that the whole 
story arose out of the voyages of Hanno and 
Himilco "in the flourishing times of Carthage," 
when one of their two fleets went southward to 
the neighborhood of Sierra Leone, and the other 
was blown about in the Atlantic till they came 
to the region of floating weed, to which Colum- 
bus afterward gave the name of the Sargasso Sea. 
They reached a place "where the waters seemed 
so shallow that the weeds lay in masses on the 
waves, and their keels were impeded as if passing 
through a thicket of underwood"; and the sea 
beasts, we are told, went up and down upon the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 109 

banks, and swam round the ships as they slowly 
drifted along. Here we seem to have the begin- 
nings of the myth of Atlantis and the prototype 
of Lucian's imaginary voyage "through pines and 
cypresses growing in the sea" ; and perhaps we 
might attribute to the same source the story in 
Pliny of a great tree in the Atlantic, with crowds 
of tunnies feeding like sea hogs on its acorns. 

In the collection of stories which was wrongly 
ascribed to Aristotle, we read of certain banks in 
the ocean where the sailors of Cadiz got the fish 
for the markets of Carthage. "Men say that 
they sail out from the Straits for four days with 
an east wind, and come on a desert full of rushes 
and seaweed, and they land and find a great 
number of tunnies of wonderful size and fatness." 
Then follows a variation of the story, to the 
effect that the Carthaginians had sailed out into 
the Atlantic and discovered a most fruitful 
island : "Men say that in the sea beyond the Pil- 
lars of Hercules the Carthaginians found an unin- 
habited island, with woods of all kinds, and nav- 
igable rivers, and a wonderful abundance of 
produce ; it lay at a distance of several days' 
sail from land. Many expeditions were made to 
it, and some of the Carthaginians even settled 



no THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

there ; but the Senate made a decree, forbidding 
any more visits on pain of death, and the settlers 
were all killed, for fear of their spreading the 
news, lest a great population might gather there, 
and by chance get the upper hand and destroy 
the prosperity of the city." 

Yet another account of the matter was pre- 
served by Diodorus Siculus, which does not, how- 
ever, appear to have been known to Columbus at 
the time when he was collecting his information. 
This version is so ornate that it seems to have 
been taken from some romance. The details 
about a great population and an abundance of 
animals of the chase must be due to the imagina- 
tion of a novelist, who may be supposed to have 
added such embroidery as might please the fancy 
of his readers. 

Diodorus described the country as being 
thickly inhabited, and attributed the discovery 
rather to the Phoenicians of Tyre than to their 
Carthaginian kindred: "Over against Africa lies 
a very great island in the vast 5cean, of many 
days' sail from Lybia. The soil here is very 
fruitful. A great part of it is mountainous, but 
much likewise is champaign, and this is the most 
sweet and pleasant part of all, for it is watered 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. in 

with several navigable rivers, beautified with 
many gardens of pleasure, planted with divers 
sorts of trees and abundance of orchards, and 
interlaced with currents of sweet water. The 
towns are adorned with stately buildings, and 
banqueting houses up and down, pleasantly sit- 
uated in their gardens and orchards; and here 
they recreate themselves in summer time, as in 
places accommodated for pleasure and delight. 
The mountainous part of the country is clothed 
with large oak woods and all manner of fruit 
trees, and for the greater diversion of people in 
these mountains they ever and anon open them- 
selves into pleasant vales, watered with fountains 
and refreshing springs. There you may have 
game enough in hunting all sorts of wild beasts, 
of which there is such plenty that in their feasts 
there is nothing wanting either as to pomp or 
delight. Now this country," he says, "by reason 
of its remote situation was at one time altogether 
unknown, but was afterward discovered in this 
way ; the Phoenicians in ancient times undertook 
frequent voyages by sea in way of traffic as mer- 
chants, so that they planted many colonies both 
in Africa and in these western parts of Europe. 
The Phoenicians having found out the coasts 



112 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

beyond the Pillars, and sailing along by the shore 
of Africa, were driven by a furious storm afar off 
into the main ocean, and after they had lain 
under this violent tempest for many days they at 
length arrived at this island, and so coming to 
the knowledge of the nature and pleasantness of 
the isle they were the first that discovered it to 
others ; and therefore the Etrurians (when they 
were masters at sea) designed to send a colony 
thither, but the Carthaginians opposed them, 
fearing lest most of their own citizens should be 
allured to settle there, and likewise intending to 
keep it as a place of refuge for themselves, in 
case of any sudden and unexpected blasts of 
fortune." 

The African voyage of Hanno was of great his- 
torical importance. The details were recorded 
in a tablet suspended in a temple, and were also 
preserved by chance in a Greek version which 
survived the destruction of Carthage. His fleet 
coasted round Morocco, and passed Cape Bo- 
jador; and the trading station or mart of Kerne 
was established either in the Isle of Arguin or, 
more probably, at the mouth of the Rio del 
Ouro. From this station two separate expedi- 
tions appear to h^ve set out. The first set of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. ii3 

explorers reached the Senegal, which they called 
Bambothus, or the River of the Behemoths, from 
the abundance of crocodiles and hippopotami; 
and they afterward pushed southward along the 
flat coast till they reached the green heights of 
Cape Verde. The leaders of the second expedi- 
tion went far beyond the former limit. First 
they came to the Bissagos Islands, in front of a 
winding gulf. They called this gulf the Horn 
of Hesperus, and the islands themselves were 
afterward known as the Hesperides. Then they 
came to a gigantic cliff, which they named the 
Chariot of the Gods ; this is the cape which the 
Portuguese called Sagres, in memory of Prince 
Henry's home by the, "sacred promontory" of 
Cape St. Vincent. Passing onward by the ridge 
of Sierra Leone, where the thunder always roars, 
they arrived at the "Southern Horn," which is 
now known as the Sherbro River. Here they 
landed on a little island full of apes. The inter- 
preters called them "gorillas"; but the Cartha- 
ginians took them for negroes. "The men," 
they said, "escaped by climbing the cliffs, and 
throwing down stones, but we caught three of 
the women ; they bit and scratched their keep- 
ers, but we killed and flayed them." According 



114 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

to Pliny and his imitators, these skins were seen 
by travelers at Carthage, suspended on the walls 
of the Temple of Ashtaroth. 

In the course of time this story took many 
different forms. When Cape Verde became 
known to the Romans it received the old name 
of the Horn of Hesperus which the Carthagin- 
ians had given to the Gulf of the Hesperides. 
The Roman geographers were very vague about 
the situation of the Fortunate Islands, although 
the group was the starting-point of their first 
meridian. Even Ptolemy of Alexandria can be 
shown to have been in some confusion about 
Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape Verde Is- 
lands, and to have treated them as if they formed 
one compact archipelago. Be this as it may, some 
knowledge was gained in very early times about 
the Cape Verde Islands, which lie about three 
hundred miles from the African shore; and these 
were called the Gorgon Islands, with an evident 
reference to the "wild women" of the ancient 
voyage. Here was laid the scene of the Greek 
legends of Perseus and the Three Gray Sisters ; 
and the Hesperides, of which all exact knowl- 
edge had been lost, were moved into a sunny 
climate far to the southward, where a dragon 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 115 

guarded the golden tree. There was an old 
romance about wars between the Gorgons antl 
the armies of Hesperus; and some were found to 
believe in the existence of this shadowy land. 
Statius Sebosus maintained that the true Hesper- 
ides lay forty good days' sail beyond Cape 
Verde. Pliny considered that all the reports 
upon this matter were uncertain ; Solinus added 
that these Hesperides were withdrawn into the 
furthest recesses of the sea. The opinion of 
Columbus was colored by what he hoped to 
prove. "These authors say, that from the Gor- 
gon Islands, supposed to be those off Cape 
Verde, was forty days' sail on the Atlantic to the 
Hesperides" ; and the admiral concluded that 
these were the West Indies. The Spaniards 
afterward based another argument on the mytho- 
logical tradition, contending that the former lord 
of these isles was Hesperus, the King of Spain, 
and that his lawful successors must therefore be 
the owners of the newly found world. 

After America had been discovered the contro- 
versies about Antilla and the Seven Cities were 
less hotly debated, and the ancient traditions 
were localized at Barbadoes and among the 
ruined cities of Yucatan. But it may still be 



Il6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

worth while to touch upon the arguments which 
passed between Oviedo and Ferdinand Columbus, 
on a subject which had so deeply affected the 
admiral's theories and projects. These argu- 
ments turned on the exact words of the legend 
as reported by the Greeks; and it may be here 
observed that neither disputant was properly 
equipped for the fray. Neither of them had the 
original version before him. Don Ferdinand had 
the Latin text of "Propositions from Aristotle," 
published by Theophilus de Ferrariis in 1493 ; and 
this book professed to contain an exact transla- 
tion of the passages relating to Antilla, made 
about the year 1477 by Antonio Becaria, a geog- 
rapher living at Verona. It was clear that he 
had inserted several matters differing from the 
original ; "and this will appear," said Don Fer- 
dinand, "to any man that will observe it." 
Oviedo, on the other hand, had nothing but "a 
friar's pamphlet," as it was called, consisting of a 
rough Spanish translation of the text as pub- 
lished by Theophilus. 

The result of the controversy Avas that Oviedo 
maintained the identity of Antilla with one of 
the West Indian islands ; he gave his readers the 
choice between Cuba and Hispaniola, and hoped, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. n? 

in either case, to fortify some mythical claim of 
the Spaniards by diminishing the merits of the 
discoveries of Columbus. Don Ferdinand criti- 
cised somewhat too seriously the minuter details 
of the story, which he pronounced to be a mere 
fabrication. "In great travels there are great 
lies," he said ; and if they came to lying, it would 
be as easy to make out the identity of the island 
with "Atalanta, that was drowned in the Pelo- 
ponnesian War," or even with the lost Atlantis 
of which Plato and the Egyptians had dis- 
coursed. But, granting that the fable was based 
upon the events of a real voyage, it was clear 
that the merchants would have had no mind to 
run further than the wind obliged them to go, 
and that no storm could last so long as to carry a 
ship from Cadiz to Hispaniola. He derided the 
idea that the Carthaginians were afraid of settle- 
ments being made in the West Indies, "between 
which and them there lay one-third of the 
world." Their merchants would never have 
given up such a fine country. They would 
rather have fortified the place so as to make their 
trade secure. "This we know," he adds, "from 
what they did at another time upon a like occa- 
sion ; for having found the Cassiterides, now 



Ii8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

called the Azores, they kept the voyage very 
private, because of the tin that they procured ; 
and so, granting the truth of what Aristotle 
wrote, it might be said that he meant to describe 
the voyages to the Azores; though Oviedo, 
either for want of better understanding and from 
the great antiquity of the story, or through that 
affection by which men are blinded, argued that 
it should be understood of the Indies which we 
now possess." 

The traditions of these Carthaginian voyages 
were utilized in very early times for the purposes 
of descriptive romance. There was a fashion for 
stories of adventure in unknown lands, and it 
was a favorite device to describe the finding of 
tropical islands and a new continent in another 
hemisphere. "How many writers," said Lucian, 
"have presented us with their travels, and have 
told us of wondrous great beasts and savages and 
new-fangled ways of living!" It was like Odys- 
seus telling the flighty Phasacians about the bags 
of wind, and the cannibals, and the Cyclops, and 
a thousand other falsehoods besides ; and he pro- 
posed to write a traveler's tale himself in which 
there should not be a single grain of truth. It is 
interesting to observe how this "True Story" 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 119 

feads in several respects like a parody of the 
journals of Columbus. Lucian supposes himself 
to have sailed from Cadiz with fifty comrades, all 
anxious to explore the Ocean and to discover 
new nations in the opposite continent. They 
suffer many strange adventures, being swallowed 
by a monstrous fish, and being whirled into the 
circle of the moon. They reach the polar ice, 
and dig out caverns to protect themselves from 
the cold ; and they find forests growing in the 
sea, and skim the tree tops in a "woodland 
voyage." They arrived at last at the Island of 
the Blessed through a land wind heavy with the 
scent of roses and the blossom of the vine. The 
rivers were as clear as crystal and the woods full 
of singing birds, "and from the whole country 
arose a mingled noise, such as may be heard at a 
banquet, where there are minstrels and flute-play- 
ers, and others dancing to the music of the harp 
and the flute." Seven other islands lay in sight, 
and after reaching the most distant of these, as the 
travelers are told, "you will come to the Great Con- 
tinent which stretches over against this country, 
and there shall you meet with many strange for- 
tunes, and pass through many nations and new and 
barbarous peoples, and so at last come home." 



i20 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

One lambulus, too, had written a story of tlie 
Great Sea, which was thought to be entertaining, 
though everybody knew that it was untrue. 
The details may be found in the collection of 
Diodorus, the Sicilian. The story begins with an 
expedition from the Red Sea to Ceylon ; and the 
wanderers pass onward to the Seven Islands, four 
months' journey to the east of India. "Here are 
exceeding great serpents, which yet do no one 
any harm ; nay, their flesh is good meat, and 
very sweet ; here the people make their clothes 
of a soft cotton, growing on reeds and canes, and 
they color it with a shell-fish dye made up in 
balls and kneaded into the stuff, and so with 
great pains they prepare their purple garments." 

The writer was guessing at the possibility of 
the task which Columbus performed. The singu- 
larity of this anticipation of his ideas occurred at 
once to the admiral's contemporaries ; and when 
Scillacio was comparing the account of the Sec- 
ond Voyage to the discoveries of Hanno in 
Africa, he remarked that it was truer indeed than 
Lucian's tale, though perhaps as full of trifles as 
the story told by the Sicilian. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" From the destined walls 
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, 
And Samarcand by Oxus, Temir's throne. . . 
On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway 
The world ; in spirit perhaps he also saw 
Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, 
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat 
Of AtabaHpa, and yet unspoiled 
Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons 
Call El Dorado." 

It was one of the chief problems of geography 
to fix the position of Thule. It was agreed that 
the island was one of the principal points by 
which the length and breadth of the world might 
be determined. Thule was regarded as the most 
northern of all habitable lands, but there had 
been disputes about its exact situation ever since 
the first Greek travelers had explored the north- 
ern seas. One ancient school of thinkers, eager 
to enlarge the world's boundaries, had set Thule 
far up within the Arctic Circle, and had spread 
out the limits of Asia more and more toward the 
east. Others, of a more timid kind, had brought 



122 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Thule close down to Scotland, and at the same 
time had reduced the length of the inhabited 
land area in what they thought to be a due pro- 
portion. Thule in the north was balanced by a 
"world's end" in the south, at a cape not far 
from the Red Sea's mouth, in the region of 
cloves and cinnamon ; and a line drawn between 
these latitudes gave the measure of the breadth 
of the world. 

It was believed that, by virtue of some natural 
law of proportion, the world's length was some- 
what more than twice its breadth. Some of the 
geographers asserted that the inhabited earth 
was shaped like an open sling, and they meant, 
apparently, that it was of a long, oval shape, 
drawn out to a point at each end. India and 
Spain formed its extremities, and the broader 
part was made up of the three continents, joined 
together at certain points, though nearly sepa- 
rated from each other by the gulfs running in 
from the ocean. 

In Ptolemy's system of geography the figure 
was changed. The world was said to be some- 
thing like a soldier's cape spread out ; and the 
map has somewhat of that appearance, as if the 
cloak were cut away for the neck, and were nar- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 123 

row at top and spreading out below, so as to take 
the breadth of the shoulders. This has always 
been a favorite method of comparison. We all 
speak of the boot shape of Italy and compare the 
Morea to a mulberry leaf. The ancients used 
to say that Spain was hke a bullock's hide with 
the neck at the Pyrenees. Britain was compared 
to the long, narrow blade of a battle-ax ; Scandi- 
navia was Hke a cedar leaf floating on the sea; 
and Columbus followed the same fashion when 
he compared Hispaniola to the leaf of the 
chestnut. 

When Thule was discovered, an extra breadth 
of about one thousand miles was added north- 
ward, with a correspojiding addition of breadth 
toward the equator. It was therefore necessary, 
according to the rule already mentioned, to add 
more than four thousand miles to the length of 
the world from east to west. Taking a line 
through Athens and Cadiz, the geographers of 
Alexandria computed the earth's circumference 
at about twenty thousand miles. Eratosthenes 
covered the whole of this unknown space with 
the Atlantic Ocean ; and he drew the bold deduc- 
tion, on which Columbus acted in a later age, 
that "if the size of the Atlantic were not of itself 



124 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

an obstacle we might easily cross by sea from 
Spain to India, keeping always on the same 
parallel of latitude." Posidonius, on the other 
hand, divided the globe into four quarters. In 
one he placed the inhabited portion of the earth 
as known to the geographers; and he conject- 
ured that there might be another tract of the 
same kind on the other side of the northern 
hemisphere. Below the burning zone of the 
equator there might in the same way be worlds 
inhabited by the nations of the Antipodes. 
Some of his followers added that we could not 
cross over to our neighbors in the temperate 
zone, "because the Atlantic is not passable by 
ships, and is haunted by monsters of the deep." 

Strabo took a narrow view of the question. He 
thought that there probably was another conti- 
nent between Spain and India, though it did not 
follow that the inhabitants would be like the men 
of the Old World. There might be regions where 
life could be supported, as far off as Thule or 
beyond the equator; but, as a practical geogra- 
pher, he had only to deal with the countries be- 
tween the line of the spice countries in the south 
and the latitude of the northern parts of Ireland, 
"where the savages could hardly live for the cold," 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 125 

Columbus adopted the ancient opinion that 
the Atlantic covered the whole space between 
the east of Asia and the west of Europe, while 
claiming the benefit of the suggestion that at 
least land of some kind would be found by pass- 
ing the ocean. He cited the authority of Aris- 
totle, on the one hand, for the belief in a continu- 
ous tract of waters ; and, on the other hand, he 
laid stress on Seneca's acceptance of the theory 
of the earlier Stoics. He quoted that passage in 
Seneca's "Medea," where the chorus sang "how 
Oceanus will loosen Nature's chains and allow a 
vast region to appear; the sea goddess will draw 
aside the veil from another world, and Thule no 
longer will be the last of lands." He quoted 
another fine passage from the same writer's "Phys- 
ical Problems." "This world in which you make 
your voyages and lay out your kingdoms is 
but a point in Nature, if you add all the gulfs of 
ocean that run in on either side. The host 
marching out under your banners, with all the 
cavalry scouring ahead or gathered on the flanks, 
is but an army of ants running to and fro upon 
the ant hill. But above us are the vast spaces of 
the firmament into which a man's soul may enter 
and take possession. Then will he despise the 



126 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

narrowness of his ancient dwelling. For what is 
the space that lies between the Indies and the 
furthest shores of Spain? Nothing but a very 
few days' journey, if the ship were favored by 
the wind. But in that celestial region there 
spreads a road whereon for thirty years at a time, 
never halting, never ceasing, the swiftest star 
may travel." 

The position assumed for Thule in Ptolemy's 
maps was perhaps due to certain statements of 
Tacitus. He had described a broad ocean 
stream in which were set the British and Scandi- 
navian islands. Beyond lay an outer sea, so 
sluggish as to be nearly without movement ; 
"and this," he says, "men take to be the girdle 
and frontier of the world, because there the 
brightness of the setting sun lasts till his rising, 
so as to make the starlight pale." He tells us 
that, when the fleet of Claudius subdued the 
Orkneys, the crews caught a glimpse of Thule, 
till then encompassed and hidden with driving 
snow, and that, as they passed on, the waters 
became sluggish and heavy against the oar, and 
were not even raised by the wind like the waves 
in other seas. In his speculations about the 
§purce of the tide-washed amber he hazards an- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 127 

other theory as to the existence of new lands in 
the West. The gHttering shapes of winged and 
creeping things, imprisoned in the gum, were an 
indication that the mass had formerly been 
liquid ; and he supposed that "as in the remote 
places of the East, where the shrubs bleed balm 
and frankincense, so in the islands and countries 
of the West there may be fertile groves, where 
the gums exude in the rays of the sun, that sets 
so near to those parts, and so may flow down to 
the sea close by and be carried ofl by the waves 
to the opposite German shores." 

Marinus of Tyre, an authority often quoted by 
Columbus, made an important attempt to reset- 
tle the boundaries of the world. He lived about 
the beginning of the age of the Antonines, not 
long before Ptolemy of Alexandria. His method 
was novel, and in some ways even fascinating. 
He abandoned mathematics as much as possible, 
and constructed a new map out of narratives of 
voyages and military expeditions. One of his 
most important innovations was his placing the 
first meridian on the line of the Canary Islands 
instead of near Cape St. Vincent ; it is to this 
change that Columbus referred when he noted 
that "Marinus began his discoveries frorn th^ 



128 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

westward." Marinus also undertook a new de- 
scription of Africa. Two expeditions of the 
Roman armies, recorded by him alone, had car- 
ried the line of the world's known breadth to a 
point far beyond the equator. Septimius Flac- 
cus advanced from the oasis behind Tripoli for a 
three months' journey southward. Julius Ma- 
ternus started from the same oasis, and went on 
for four months to a region where the rhinoceros 
most abounded. On the east coast he described 
the voyage of Diogenes down to a cape "near the 
lakes from which the Nile flows out," and the 
return journey of one Theophilus who got back 
to Cape Guardafui in twenty days, sailing at the 
rate of a hundred miles a day. 

When we come to his map of Asia we find 
some very surprising results. There is a carved 
rock or Stone Tower in the highlands of Pamir, 
now called King Solomon's Throne ; and here 
the Chinese silk merchants used to meet the trad- 
ers from Samarcand and Bokhara. An itinerary 
compiled by one Titianus described the whole 
route from the Euphrates to the interior of 
China; and seven months were allowed for the 
silk merchants to return home from the markets 
held at the Stone Tower, Marinus considered 



THE CAREER OP COLUMBUS. t^ 

that no less than a length of 3600 miles should be 
attributed to this part of the journey. Another 
estimate of the length of Asia was afforded by 
the voyage of Nearchus, who had taken four 
months to sail from the Indus to the Persian 
Gulf. More modern travelers had given very 
exaggerated accounts of the distance from the 
Ganges to the Golden Chersonese. A merchant 
named Alexander had said that one might go 
from the Straits of Malacca for twenty days east- 
ward to the city of Zabrae, and then on again for 
many days to the mart of Cattigara, a place 
which some have placed in Borneo and others in 
the neighborhood of Hongkong. But even here, 
thousands of miles beyond the Ganges, as he 
thought, Marinus found no limit, and was forced 
to leave some parts of the Indies still unde- 
scribed. 

The result was that he doubled the old esti- 
mates of the world's length, and made the land 
area cover about two-thirds of the world's whole 
circle, or fifteen out of the twenty-four hours, if 
we adopt the measurement by time. Columbus 
felt justified, therefore, in believing that the 
space between the easternmost point known to 
Marinus and the Cape Verde Islands "could not 



i^o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

be more than a third part of the whole circumfer- 
ence of the globe." As Marinus had not come 
to the end of the east, one might allow for the 
land stretching out still further; and the more it 
advanced to the east the nearer it would be to 
us in the west. If the space between were sea, 
it might be crossed in a few days ; if it were 
mostly land, it would be all the easier to reach it. 
There was, besides, the authority of the Greeks 
quoted by Pliny, who all thought that the Indies 
covered a third part of the earth; "and if 
India be so large, it must be near Spain, if we 
take the western route." 

The exaggerations of Marinus were, to some 
extent, corrected by Ptolemy ; but the space left 
uncovered in the map was still very much too 
small. For one thing these ancient geographers 
measured by very small degrees, so that there 
was a loss of quite one-fifth in the estimate of 
the earth's circumference. Columbus himself 
went by the calculations of Alfragan, an Arabian 
geographer, who took the length of a mean de- 
gree of the meridian at fifty-six and two-thirds 
Italian miles. This still further reduced the esti- 
mate of the earth's circuit ; and the result in 
short was this, that if Marinus was right about 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 131 

India and Alfragan correct in his measurement, 
there would be no room for any very wide ocean 
on the route which Columbus was to explore. 

Ptolemy placed in the northern limit of the 
world at "Thule," by which it is clear that he 
meant the largest of the Shetland Isles. The 
earlier Greek travelers had found their ' 'world's 
end" on the verge of the Arctic Circle; they 
approached the region of the midnight sun, and 
described the swift passing of the northern night. 
"In some places," they said, "the night was three 
hours long, in some only two hours, and at last 
the sun would rise almost as soon as he had set." 
The northern parts of Scandinavia were after- 
ward connected with these descriptions. On the 
death of "Amaricus" the King of the Heruli, his 
followers sent to Thule for another offspring of 
the royal line; and the Byzantine historian has 
recounted the incidents of the long journey, and 
the strange customs of the "men of Thule." 

The mediaeval writers were in favor of identify- 
ing Thule with Iceland, and this theory had been 
adopted in many quarters even before the time 
of Adam of Bremen. The first to start the opin- 
ion seems to have been the Monk Dicuil, an 
Irishman, who in the year 825 wrote a treatise on 



132 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the measurement of the earth. He said that 
about thirty years previously certain Irish clerks 
had told him of their discovery of Iceland, which 
he took to be the Thule of the ancients, though 
in his time it was unnamed and uncolonized. 

The discoverers were some of the missionaries 
to the Faroe Islands, who had been expelled by 
the heathen Northmen. They had first landed 
on the rocky islets which after took their names 
from bells and books that were left there by the 
"Pope's men." Then they had occupied the 
outlying Westmann Isles, which were named in 
like manner from this visit of the men who lived 
west of Norway. Finally they landed in Iceland 
itself, and reached the north coast about the be- 
ginning of February. At this time of year the 
darkness was almost continuous. At midsummer 
they had no night at all; "the sun only disap- 
peared for a few minutes at midnight, as if he 
were passing behind a little hill." They noted 
that the sea was not frozen near the shore, but 
that at one day's journey from the north coast 
they had come upon an icy sea. This may have 
been the drift ice, or it may have been the sludge 
and spongy ice like that which the barbarians 
described to Pytheas on his voyage from Mar- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 133 

seilles: "After one day's sail beyond Thule men 
come to a sluggish sea, where there is no separa- 
tion of air, land, and water, but only a mixture of 
elements like the stuff of a jelly fish, through 
which one can neither walk nor sail." 

Columbus was satisfied that the world's north- 
ern limit had been discovered. He could calcu- 
late the measurements of the globe between the 
equator and the Arctic Circle. It only remained 
to find out the length of the circumference from 
the beginning of India on the east to the end of 
Africa on the west. 

The results of the old theories on this point 
had been stored in the works of Roger Bacon, 
and they were again brought to light by Pierre 
d'Ailly in his essay on the "Image of the World." 
Something more was to be learned from other 
mediaeval authorities. Capitolinus had been of 
opinion that "Spain and India are neighbors 
westward.** Marco Polo had been further east 
than any place of which Marinus had heard. It 
was clear that in the course of his travels he had 
touched the further shore of the ocean. It must 
be possible to find once more the marvelous city 
of waters, where Kubla Khan had reared his 
palaces, and the harbors where the Tartar fleets 



134 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

were equipped to attack the rich island of "Cipan- 
go,'' or Japan. 

"These and the Hke authorities," says the 
biographer, "led the admiral to think that the 
opinion he had conceived was right." In pro- 
jecting the actual voyage of discovery he was 
encouraged by the help and sympathy of another 
great scholar. Paolo Toscanelli of Florence was 
a cosmographer of the highest renown. While 
Columbus was on a visit to Lisbon, about the end 
of the year 1474, he heard that Toscanelli had 
lately been in correspondence with Fernando 
Martinez, a canon of Lisbon, who was inquiring, 
on behalf of the Portuguese, about "the short 
way from Lisbon to the Indies." Columbus 
knew that his friend Girardi was about to return 
to Italy, and he ventured to send a letter by him 
to Toscanelli asking for information on his own 
account, "sending him a small sphere, and ac- 
quainting him with the nature of his design." 
Toscanelli's answer was prompt and favorable. 
He praised "the noble and earnest desire" which 
appeared in the request of Columbus, and in- 
closed a copy of the letter sent to Martinez and 
of the chart prepared for the King of Portugal. 
This chart showed India and a multitude of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 135 

islands, and "a most noble country called Zac- 
ton," where every year a hundred large ships 
were loaded with pepper alone. "This country," 
it was said, "is mighty populous, and there are 
many provinces and kingdoms, and innumerable 
cities under the dominion of a prince called the 
Great Cham, who resides for the most part in the 
province of Cathay." More than two centuries 
had passed since the predecessors of this em- 
peror had endeavored to communicate with Rome. 
But quite lately, in the pontificate of Eugenius 
the Fourth, an ambassador had actually arrived, 
and had told the Pope of the friendship that ex- 
isted between his master's subjects and the east- 
ern Christians. "I discoursed with him a long 
while," says Toscanelli, "about the grandeur of 
their royal buildings, and upon the greatness of 
their rivers; he told me many wonderful things 
about the multitude of cities along these rivers, and 
that there were two hundred cities on one river 
alone, with marble bridges over it of great length 
and breadth, adorned with abundance of pillars. 
This country deserves to be visited as much as 
any other; and there may be great profit made 
there, and gold and silver found, with all sorts of 
precious stones, and spices in abundance, which 



136 THE Career of columbuS. 

are not now brought into our parts." The chart 
'was divided into "spaces," each representing a 
length of 250 miles. A line due west from Lis- 
bon, covering twenty-six of these "spaces," 
reached the "noble vast city of Quinsay." This 
was the capital of that part of Southern China in 
which the Emperor was believed to reside. The 
island of Antilla was shown on a higher parallel, 
opposite to the island of "Cipango," or Japan; 
and between these points there was a distance of 
no more than ten spaces, or 2500 miles. 

Toscanelli soon afterward wrote again to Colum- 
bus, in answer apparently to a demand for further 
explanations: "I received your letter with the 
things that you sent me, which I take as a great 
favor. . o . . I am glad that the chart is well un- 
derstood, and that the voyage laid down is not 
only possible, but true, certain, honorable, very 
advantageous, and most glorious among all Chris- 
tians." He repeats that the discovery can only 
be made by having regard to the wise men who 
have come to Rome from those parts, and from 
the merchants who have traded in the East. 
"When the voyage is performed it will be to 
powerful kingdoms and to most noble cities and 
provinces, rich in all things of which we stand in 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 137 

need, particularly in all sorts of spice and in a 
store of jewels." He ends by showing the ad- 
vantages that will result from opening communi- 
cations with the learned men of those distant 
countries; "for which reasons, and many more 
that might be alleged, I do not at all wonder that 
you, who have a great heart, and the Portuguese 
nation, which has always had notable men en- 
gaged on its undertakings, are eagerly bent upon 
bringing this voyage to pass." 



CHAPTER IX. 

" Of Iceland to write is litel nede 
Save of stock-fish ; yet, forsooth, indeed, 
Out of Bristowe and coastes many a one 
Men have practised by nedle and stone 
Thitherwards within a litel while, 
Within twelve yeres, and without perile 
Gone and come, as men were wont of old 
Of Scarborough unto the coastes cold." 

"I WAS sailing in February, 1477, a hundred 
leagues beyond the Isle of Thule, whereof the 
south part lies distant from the equator seventy- 
three degrees, and not sixty-three degrees, as 
some would have it ; and it does not lie within 
Ptolemy's westernmost meridian, but is much 
further out to the westward ; and to this island, 
which is as large as England, the English go with 
their merchandise, especially the men of Bristol. 
And at the time I went the sea was not frozen, 
but it rose in some places twenty-six ells high, 
and then fell again as much."* "Moreover," it is 

* " lo navigai I'anno 1477 nel mese di febbraio oltra Tile 
isola, cento leghe, la cui parte australe e lontana dall' equi- 
noziale settantatre gradi, e non sessantatre, come alcuni 
vogliono ; ne giace dentro della linea che include I'occidente 
di Tolomeo, ma e molto piu occidentale. 



THE CAREER QF COLUMBUS. 139 

added, "it is quite true that the Thule mentioned 
by Ptolemy lies just where he said that it lay ; 
and this is what people of our time have called 
Frisland. ' 

The first of these statements is in the words of 
Columbus himself. The note as to Frisland was 
added by Don Ferdinand. They were one day 
reading and discussing an essay on the five zones, 
in which the younger man sought to prove by the 
experience of travelers that some part at least of 
each zone was fit for the habitation of man. "Ay, 
ay!" said his father, "and I am a good witness to 
prove it. I have been in the King of Portugal's 
fortress of St. George of the Gold Mine, and that 
lies right under the equator, so that it's not so 
uninhabitable as some would make out." As to 
living" in the Arctic zone, he had been there him- 
self in the middle of winter, a hundred sea 
leagues beyond Iceland, at four miles to the 
league. They were far away from the "Thule" 
of the ordinary maps, but he knew exactly where 
he was. By his reckoning, as we have seen, 
there were fifty-six and two-third miles to the 
degree ; and seventy-three of these degrees from 
the equator just brought them to the south of 
the "Thule" of the ancients; and his ship was 



140 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

far beyond that point, right up in the Arctic 
Circle. 

It has been sometimes said that these remarks 
of Columbus are full of geographical blunders; 
but if we read his words carefully, and distin- 
guish what he said from his son's commentary, 
we shall find that he knew perfectly well what he 
was talking about. From what he said about 
the men of Bristol it has been assumed that he 
went himself to Iceland on board a Bristol ship. 
We shall see later on that the English traders 
were not allowed to land in Iceland at the time 
of which he was speaking. But, even assuming 
that a Bristol merchant had obtained the neces- 
sary licenses from the Kings of England and 
Denmark, we should still have to explain what 
they would be doing in Iceland during the win- 
ter. The whole voyage would be dreary and 
unprofitable. At that time of year there was 
nothing doing in the ports; the Scotch herring 
fishery was not begun, there was no business to 
be done at Shetland, no crowd of ships round the 
Monk Rock off Faroe, and nothing but deserted 
quays at the shipping center of Thorshavn. If 
they were going for stock-fish to fulfill an army 
contract, or to get fine cod and mackerel for the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 141 

Italian market, the ship would have arrived too 
soon. The fishing season only began in Febru- 
ary, and lasted for fully three months. The 
mackerel and the cod and ling had to be dried in 
the cold winds and stacked like firewood, ready 
for sale at the summer fair. Nothing could be 
sold except at the fairs, which few of the unruly 
English were at that time allowed to attend. 
There are minute descriptions of these gatherings 
and of the terrible difficulty of preserving the 
peace of the fair. "The traders make their prep- 
arations as if they were about to engage in bat- 
tle." The Governor and his ofificials were there 
to levy tolls and grant licenses. But it was a 
wretched sight, says Olaus Magnus, to see how 
the merchants fought to get the pick of the 
places. There was a crowd of Hanse merchants, 
who had for a long time the monopoly of trading 
between Iceland and Norway; and after them 
came the English and Scotch, fighting among 
themselves for the first place; "but however 
they might injure each other there was always 
the clerk of the market waiting to take the toll, 
and to punish the offenders by fine and imprison- 
ment." 

Such was the course of business at the regular 



142 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

fairs, and we have no reason to suppose that any 
arrangements were made for receiving traders at 
any other seasons of the year. This of itself 
would lead to the belief that the visit of Colum- 
bus to the North Sea had nothing to do with the 
intercourse between Bristol and Iceland. It is, 
of course, an obvious remark that he never said a 
word about being in Iceland at all. But such 
eagerness has always be^n shown to charge him 
with a furtive knowledge, and a determination to 
conceal what the Icelanders knew about Amer- 
ica, that it is necessary to discuss as arguments a 
series of suggestions without evidence to support 
them. 

The remark of Columbus about the freedom of 
the sea from ice is said to be corroborated by the 
Icelandic records. It is very likely that the drift 
ice had not come far south in the winter of 
1476-77. There is great variation in the extent 
of the drift. In some j'-ears the whole coast is 
open ; in others the sea has been covered with 
ice all round the island, "so that a man might 
ride from one cape to another, across all the 
gulfs and bays." Professor Magnussen quoted 
the Icelandic Annals, for 1477, as containing a 
memorandum in the native language that in 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. I43 

March there was no snow upon the ground. 
Professor Rafn cited the same entry as relating 
to the months of February and March in the 
same year. The fact, we are told, "proves, by a 
singular coincidence of time and place, the verac- 
ity of the narrative of Columbus." There might 
be some slight interest in noting that his state- 
ment about the mild weather was incidentally 
supported in this way; though Columbus was, of 
course, only commenting on the report men- 
tioned by Pliny that after one day's journey 
from Thule one came to an impassable sea. But 
the form and language of the memorandum seem 
to show that it referred to the Icelandic way of 
reckoning, and not to the month of March in the 
Roman calendar. The classical months were not 
at that time used in Iceland, and are even now 
regarded "only as book dates to be looked up in 
the almanac." The Icelanders' year lasted till 
the beginning of spring. After the Yule-tide 
came "Thorri," last but one of the winter 
months, and "G6i" the last month, which began 
on the 8th of February and ended on the 8th of 
March, when the "First Month" of the new year 
began. Any event taking place in the last three 
weeks in February would be counted as part of 



144 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the old year. When an Icelander talked of the 
close of the year 1477 he was referring to a time 
which we should call the spring of 1478. It 
seems probable, therefore, that the remark as to 
the absence of snow was intended for the begin- 
ning of the year 1478, nearly a twelvemonth 
after the date of the admiral's voyage. 

Professor Magnussen considered it "not alto- 
gether improbable" that Columbus met the 
Bishop of Skalholt at the trading-port, and in- 
quired from him what the Icelanders knew of a 
western continent. The Bishop was head of a 
monastery at Helgafell, where there had been a 
temple in ancient days, and a settlement from 
which some of the Icelanders were supposed to 
have started on their western voyages; "and the 
Bishop, no doubt, was thoroughly acquainted with 
these narratives, which, indeed, at that period as 
in later times, were generally known in Iceland." 

It is curious to notice how the Professor grad- 
ually became more and more certain that Colum- 
bus arrived with the English traders and studied 
the old memorials of Greenland. The English 
trade, he says, must merit the attention of his- 
torians, if it furnished him with the occasion of 
visiting the island, "there to be informed of the 



TUE career of COLUMBUS. 145 

historical evidence." The next step is reached 
when he remarks that accounts of the ancient 
voyages "could not have escaped the ardent re- 
searches of Columbus," as he was in a land where 
these discoveries were not forgotten. "If Co- 
lumbus should have acquired a knowledge of the 
most important of these accounts, we may the 
more readily conceive his firm belief in the possi- 
bility of rediscovering a western continent and 
his unwearied zeal in putting his plans into exe- 
cution." The admiral is supposed to have held 
conversations in Latin with the Icelandic schol- 
ars and perhaps to have learned something of 
other accounts, of which some may have been 
destroyed and others have only come in our time 
to the knowledge of the general public. In the 
end he concluded that all these suppositions 
might be accepted as actual facts ; "the discovery 
of America, so momentous in its results, may 
therefore be regarded as the immediate conse- 
quence of its previous discovery by the Scandi- 
navians, which may thus be placed among the 
most important events of former ages." 

We shall deal separately with the story of the 
voyages from Greenland, and of the total wreck 
and oblivion which had come upon the distant 



t46' THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

colony, so that even the place of it was forgot- 
ten. But, before leaving the subject of the 
British trade, it may be useful to note some of 
the information collected by Professor Magnus- 
sen upon the general subject of the intercourse 
between England and Iceland. When the island 
first came under the power of Norway, its trade 
was at once crushed out under the stress of a 
terrible monopoly. No more English linens, no 
implements of husbandry, no wax for the church, 
or honey for the household might be brought to 
Iceland from the southward. In fact no trade at 
all was to be carried on without the royal permis- 
sion. The stock-fish and crates of butter were 
all to be carried to Bergen for sale at the King's 
"Staple of Nordberg," as the authorized trading 
center, and ships were to be sent in return from 
Norway with a supply of the necessaries of life. 
There is nothing to show that any other com- 
merce was henceforth carried on until the trade 
with England was renewed in the beginning of 
the fifteenth century. 

In 141 3 an English merchant was allowed to 
trade under a special license, but soon afterward 
a great number of merchantmen and fishing 
smacks came, uninvited, with a letter from the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 147 

King of England, "requesting permission for his 
subjects to trade without molestation." Not- 
withstanding all protests, within two years there 
were six of our ships in a single harbor, and it is 
said that the governor freighted one of them 
with a return cargo, and made the voyage in per- 
son to England. Our parliamentary records 
show that this led to fresh complaints and to the 
issue of a proclamation in 141 5 prohibiting the 
men of London, Lynn, Yarmouth, and Boston, 
from trading to Iceland, or fishing there "in any 
other way than according to established usage." 
The matter was of vast importance to this coun- 
try, because the English armies at that time were 
always fed on rations of stock-fish. The Iceland- 
ers in vain petitioned for leave to trade with the 
foreigners, as a matter of life and death ; and 
when their reasonable demands were refused, the 
natural consequence ensued. The Englishmen, 
forbidden to carry on their business, retaliated by 
plundering the royal warehouses and carrying on 
a private war. The trade degenerated into 
smuggling, and turned afterward into mere free- 
booting and brigandage. If the natives would 
not sell their fish, it was taken by force. The 
revenue officers were "knocked on the head," 



148 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

and the magistrates captured and held to ran- 
som. On one occasion three English crews 
landed on the north coast, "marching in order of 
battle, with colors flying and trumpets sounding," 
and, having insulted the bishop and killed a 
magistrate, returned to their ships with consider- 
able booty. Another party laid three churches 
in ashes, "taking away the church plate and 
priestly robes, besides a great number of horned 
cattle and sheep, as well as many of the inhab- 
itants." A complaint was forwarded to the Eng- 
lish Parliament which summed up these griev- 
ances in the following way : "There is an island 
on the coast of Iceland called Westmann Isle, 
which is the lawful property of the King of Nor- 
way, so that no one but he has the least right to 
it. This is the best place for fishing on all the 
coasts, and the English have constantly made it 
their station ever since their trade commenced. 
There they build houses, pitch tents, dig up the 
soil, and make use of everything as if it belonged 
to them, without obtaining or even seeking for 
permission from the king's ofificers. They have, 
in fact, established themselves there by force, 
and will not let fish belonging to the king or 
anyone else be carried away until their own ves- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 1 49 

sels are loaded ; in short, they act in every way 
just as they please." There was a further com- 
plaint that these foreigners traded without a 
license, whereas merchants from Denmark and 
Norway were bound to have one and even then 
could only carry their fish to Bergen, "which is 
the general staple for stock-fish, as Calais is the 
staple for wool." After a great number of proc- 
lamations in London and Copenhagen, a treaty 
was made in 1450 whereby English subjects were 
forbidden to trade with Iceland or the northern 
parts of Norway, with the exception of William 
Canynge, the Mayor of Bristol, who was allowed, 
for special reasons, to send two ships to Iceland 
in each of the two years following. 

The illegal traffic appears to have soon re- 
vived, and we learn that in 1453 Bjorn Thorleifs- 
son, afterward Governor of Iceland, was ordered 
to put it down. In 1467 an event occurred 
which led to a war between England and Den- 
mark. The village of Rif was much frequented 
by the English from London and Hull. One 
day, when Bjorn Thorleifsson came to this place, 
"these traders fell upon him and killed him, 
together with seven of his followers." His wife, 
the Lady Olof, escaped with a few companions, 



15° THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

but Thorleif Bjornsson, the governor's son, was 
taken prisoner. The Englishmen seem to have 
treated the lady with a shocking insolence. 
When she received the mangled body of her hus- 
band, which the English sent to her all in pieces, 
she would not shed a tear, "but vowed to take 
good care that Bjorn should not fall unrevenged." 
When young Thorleif was ransomed, she put on 
a shirt of mail, and went with him at the head of 
her followers to attack the English. The for- 
eigners were defeated ; the crews of three of the 
vessels were nearly all killed, and the rest were 
carried off as prisoners. Olof left Iceland the 
next year to ask the king for further vengeance, 
and four ships from London and Bristol were 
seized by way of reprisals. When peace was 
made, in 1474, the trade with Iceland was again 
forbidden, and the prohibition was renewed in 
the year when Columbus started for the north. 
Thorleif had been appointed governor soon after 
his father's murder, and he was holding that 
of^ce at the date of the admiral's voyage. He 
was, as will be shown later, the owner of the very 
valuable manuscript in which the traditions of 
the Scandinavian explorers were recorded. It 
can hardly, one would suppose, be argued that a 



The career of columbus. 151 

visitor arriving on a Bristol ship would be favor- 
ably received by the governor or any of the lead- 
ing officials, or that the literary treasures of the 
island would be collected and thrown open for 
his inspection. 

The words of Columbus have shown us that he 
was sailing within the Arctic Circle, The object 
of his voyage remains unknown. It is not likely 
that he had personally anything to do with the 
fisheries, though he may have been in communi- 
cation with the fleet engaged upon the winter 
fishing on the great banks near the Lofoden 
Islands. By the 8th of February the watchers 
on the cliffs expected to see rorquals and gram- 
pus attacking the moving army of herrings; 
according to their proverb, "on the last of Thorri 
and first of G6i, there's whale and herring seen in 
the sea." They fished for these early shoals 
with the drift nets, "and one might see in the 
compass of a mile upward of two or three hun- 
dred fishing boats lying on their station for a 
month together." Further on in the spring the 
smaller herrings were caught with casting nets, 
and a net with a large mesh was used for the 
great cod which followed the herrings. We read 
also of a longshore fishery with night lines ; and 



152 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

there was a deep-sea business besides, carried on 
far out from the islands "in the sea between 
Norway and Iceland." The latter was described 
by Olaus Magnus, who dwelt on the peril from 
storm and drift ice and the hard life of the sailors 
in the long winter nights. They caught cod and 
ling, skates and rays, and were especially 
successful in taking the large halibuts, one of 
which would fill a barrel by itself. We are told 
that the fins and long slices of the meat were 
salted down and packed for export to the 
Mediterranean, and that the French, when they 
began a "turbot fishery" in America, learned 
how to cut off and cure the fat from the fins and 
strips from the body of the fish. The old writers 
are full of the superstitions and terrors of the 
fishermen. There were dangers from the great 
squids, enlarged by fancy into serpents and kra- 
kens, from the saw fishes "with teeth like a 
cock's comb," and the swordfish "with a head 
like an owl and a bill like a sword." Sometimes, 
in the place of a thornback, they would draw up 
a cramp fish or torpedo ray ; or instead of a large 
skate would appear a "monk" or angel fish "and 
when such are taken," says the historian, "if they 
be not presently let go, there ariseth such a 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. I53 

fierce tempest, with a horrid noise of that kind of 
creatures and other sea monsters there assembled, 
that a man would think the very heavens were 
falling and the vaulted roof of the world running 
to ruin." 

These fisheries were conducted under the direc- 
tion of the merchants at Bergen. No foreigners 
were allowed to intervene ; and the English 
especially were forbidden to come near the coast, 
though it may have been impossible to keep 
them from the deep-sea fishery. Their great 
opponents were the Hanse merchants, who 
would have had little scruple in engaging armed 
assistance in support of their usurped authority. 
When our traders in 1428 had nearly been success- 
ful in restoring their commerce at Bergen the 
freebooters in the pay of the Hanse League 
burned and sacked a great part of the city, 
besides plundering a fleet of vessels from Nor- 
mandy, "which had come for the summer fish- 
ing"; and the Germans soon re-established their 
oppressive dominion over the whole trade of the 
port. We may suppose that the governments 
of England and France would be driven on some 
occasions to protect their subjects' rights, even 
though there were laws against fishing or trading 



154 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

on the coast. Might not Columbus, it will be 
asked, be engaged in some such service under 
Admiral Coulon or the younger Colombo? But 
as a Portuguese subject since his marriage, and 
indeed as "a Portuguese sea captain," he would 
hardly be free to serve under the flag of France ; 
and as to the freebooter Colombo there is direct 
documentary evidence that he was spending the 
winter at Lisbon, and had gone with nine ships 
early in January to lie in wait for the Flanders 
galleys on their outward voyage from Cadiz. 

It is difficult, as we have seen, to suppose that 
Columbus was engaged on a voyage under the 
elder Coulon for the protection of the French 
king's interest in the Lofoden fisheries. On the 
other hand, it is almost impossible to believe 
that he sailed to Iceland on any English ship. 
His language implies that he was navigating a 
ship of his own ; it also appears from his journals 
that he had touched at some port in England, 
which he describes as "the way to the North." 
On the whole, we are led to suppose that his 
journey beyond Thule had a direct relation to 
his projects of oceanic discovery. 

He had a favorite scheme of making a Polar 
expedition. Some reference is made to thi§ 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 155 

scheme in his own account of the Fourth Voy- 
age, when he declared that he would make for 
Arabia around the Cape or explore the region 
of the Arctic Pole. "I would undertake," he 
says, "to go to Arabia Felix as far as Mecca, as 
I have said in the letter that I sent to their 
Highnesses by Antonio de Torres, with reference 
to the division of the sea and land between the 
Spaniards and the Portuguese ; and I * would 
afterward go to the North Pole, as I have said 
and as I have stated in writing at the Monastery 
of the Mejoreda." We know that the advisers 
of John of Portugal were at that time consider- 
ing how to reach India by a northeastern voyage 
round Siberia. 

Olaus Magnus, who wrote his history toward the 
end of the sixteenth century, has given an inter- 
esting account of the state of the North Sea in 
his time. He mentions the renewal of the com- 
merce with England under a decree called "Pin- 
ning's Judgment," which had been accepted by 
Henry the Seventh; he then notices the great 
increase in number of the German traders from 
the Baltic ; and he adds that these northern wa- 
ters were frequented by the Portuguese, "always 
on the lookout for new countries," as well as by 



156 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the Spaniards and Frenchmen, who were always 
complaining of the natives and never knew a 
word of their language. The historian also says 
that the ships from the southern countries were 
subject to piratical attacks by the natives of 
Greenland ; but as he places the locality in the 
direction of the White Sea and Spitzbergen, it 
looks as though he were referring to the Nor- 
wegian' freebooters, and to premature attempts 
of the Spaniards and Portuguese to break 
through the adverse barriers of the icy "Cronian 
Sea." It seems, therefore, to be a reasonable 
supposition that Columbus was engaged in the 
Portuguese service in searching for the route, 
found only in our own time, to the rich coast of 
Cathay, "along the imagined way, beyond 
Petsora eastward." 

One more point should be mentioned, in refer- 
ence to the suggestion that Columbus might 
have concealed what he had heard about a coun- 
try to the west of Iceland. As a matter of fact, 
it was his habit to write down all that he could 
learn in any quarter which tended to the confir- 
mation of his theory. He would have no partic- 
ular interest in the traditions of Icelandic discov- 
ery. He was aware of the existence of "Tar- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 15 7 

tary," and would certainly have accepted the 
notion that it might be reached by crossing the 
Atlantic. His own object was to take advantage 
of the supposed prolongation of Asia in the 
regions of China and Japan ; but he made care- 
ful memoranda about every alleged discovery of 
the transatlantic world. He tells us, for in- 
stance, that about the year 1452 a Portuguese 
captain came with a story about finding "An- 
tilla," and told Prince Henry about the islanders 
taking the crew to church, where a regular ser- 
vice was performed ; "and it was reported that 
while the sailors were at mass the ship's boys 
gathered sand for the cook's caboose, and found 
that a third part of it was gold." Among the 
Portuguese who set out to find this island was a 
gentleman named Diogo de Teive, who had just 
left his sugar factory at Madeira, and was about 
to go on business in the Azores. His pilot was 
one Pedro Velascj^uez, who lived at Palos in 
Spain, and who talked over the matter with 
Columbus when he was staying at the Monastery 
of La Rabida. According to this pilot they set 
out from Fayal and sailed for about 150 leagues 
without finding anything, but in returning they 
came upon the Isle of Flores, to which they were 



158 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

guided by the flight of land birds, chiefly buz- 
zards, making in that direction. Starting once 
more, they sailed to the northeast, not far from 
Cape Clear in Ireland, where they met with stiff 
westerly winds, and yet the sea was smooth, as if 
there were some island sheltering it on that side. 
When Columbus was talking over this matter at 
the Port of Palos, one of the sailors said that he 
had made the same voyage ; he was on the way 
to Ireland, and saw the land in question, which 
he took for part of Tartary ; but in Don Ferdi- 
nand's opinion "it is likely enough that this was 
Labrador, or what we call the land of Bacalaos, 
and that they epuld not get to it because of the 
bad weather." If there were any truth in the 
story, it might have been the Porcupine Bank, or 
the whole thing may be only a reflection of the 
Irish legends of a Land of Youth on the blue 
verge of the Western sea. Columbus never paid 
any great attention to statements about islands a 
few score of leagues to the westward ; but he 
told his son that the story exactly agreed with 
What Pedro de Velasco, the pilot of Galicia, had 
told him when they met in the city of Murcia, 
and this was to the effect that in sailing toward 
Ireland they went out of their course and found 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 159 

this new land ; "and what is more," said Colum- 
bus, "you may take it to be the same as that 
which is called the Isle of the Seven Cities, 
which Fernan d'Ulmo went out from the Azores 
to discover under the royal letters patent, and 
perished ; and his sons went several times on the 
same voyage, and perished, one after the other, 
without being heard of again." "And these 
things," says Don Ferdinand, "I faithfully set 
down as I found them in my father's writings, so 
that it may appear what great matters some peo- 
ple have raised upon a very slight foundation." 



CHAPTER X. 

" The old seafaring men 
Came to me now and then. 
With their Sagas of the seas, 
Of Iceland and of Greenland, 

And the stormy Hebrides, 
And the undiscovered deep. 
I could not eat nor sleep, 

For thinking of those seas." 

Many attempts have been made to diminish 
the fame of Columbus by statements that Amer- 
ica was well known to the Norsemen, and that he 
himself was well aware of the fact. The story 
goes that the Scandinavian explorers had discov- 
ered a pleasant region which they knew as Vin- 
land the Fair, where the grass never withered, 
and no frost was felt at night, but the hill slopes 
were clad with vines and the valleys with self- 
sown corn. We shall consider the origin of the 
story and the various transformations which it 
underwent from tirne to time; and it will be seen 
how unlikely it was that the admiral ever heard 
of it or would in any case have attached impor- 
tance to its details. 

i6e 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. l6f 

The romance of Vinland rests .partly on a pas- 
sage \\\ an early chronicle, and partly on two 
much later Sagas which were brought to light at 
the end of the sixteenth century, when learning 
revived in the North. Adam of Bremen, who 
wrote upon the history of the Baltic countries 
about the time of our Norman Conquest, was a 
good scholar himself, and lived among men who 
were familiar with all parts of Europe from the 
White Sea to the Golden Horn. His chronicle, 
however, is chiefly remarkable for the credulity 
which accepted the fables about monsters, which 
had been stale even when Pliny collected them. 
The dog-faced tribes and one-legged men, the 
Amazons and Cannibals, the Albinos and men 
with faces on their shoulders, all appear among 
the nations of the Baltic, as they once had fig- 
ured in the oldest descriptions of Africa, and as 
they were destined again to appear on the find- 
ing of America; and the chronicler adds that 
"there are monsters of many other kinds, which 
the sailors say that they have seen, though we 
find it hard to believe them." 

Norway and Sweden are imagined as lying 
along the slopes of the Rhipaean Hills, "where 
the tired world comes to an end." In front of 



ida THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

these hills, to the north of Sweden, lies Green- 
land, far off in the Ocean. It takes from five to 
seven days to reach it from Norway, or about as 
long as the ordinary voyage to Iceland. "The 
natives are blue with the brine, and this gives its 
name to the country; they live in much the 
same way as the Icelanders, but they are more 
ferocious, and they make piratical attacks on 
voyagers; some say, however, that to them also 
the Gospel has been carried across the sea." 
The historian then quotes a conversation held 
with King Sweyn of Denmark, the nephew of 
our King Canute. "He said that another island 
in that ocean had been reached by many men ; it 
was called Vinland, because the vines grow there 
of themselves and produce most excellent wine; 
and it is also rich in self-sown crops of corn ; and 
this comes not from any mere tradition, but rests 
on the actual testimony of the Danes." 

It is a fact of some significance that Greenland 
should have been placed in a line with the range 
of mountains between Norway and Sweden. 
Many of the theories of the mediaeval geog- 
raphers can be traced back to legends about the 
exploits of Alexander the Great. Among these 
notions was the belief that one might sail down 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 163 

from the north into the Caspian Sea. Leaving 
the Rhipaean Hills upon the left, one would come 
first to the land of the Grififins, and then to Al- 
bania, the pirates' islands, and the forests and 
golden plains of the fruitful land of Hyrcania. ^ 
When we examine the Saga of Eric the Red, 
from which it has been suggested that Columbus 
may have gained his information, we shall find 
that the local color is mostly derived from tradi- 
tions of this kind. It is possible that Leif the 
Lucky may have seen maize and fox grapes 
growing wild in the latitude of Canada ; but the 
rest of the story seems to have been written by a 
scribe who knew nothing about America. 

One of the earliest statements about the mat- 
ter is contained in the "Life of Olaf Tryggvason." 
We are told that a mission was sent to Green- 
land about the year 1006. The ship was driven 
off her course and wrecked ; but the crew were 
rescued by Leif Ericson. "Leif went to Green- 
land in the summer; in the sea he saved a crew 
clinging to a wreck ; he also found Vinland the 
Fair, and arrived about harvest time in Green- 
land with the priest and the teachers." 

The Saga of Eric the Red is preserved in a 
MS. known as the Flatey Book, belonging to the 



164 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

National Library at Copenhagen. Mr. Vigfus- 
son described the book as forming a huge ency- 
clopedia of northern history, its pages containing 
more than half of what is known of the older his- 
tory of the Orkneys and Faroes, of Greenland 
and Vinland. It was compiled about the year 
1387 for a yeoman living in the east of Iceland, 
not far from the monastery at Thingore, where 
no doubt there was "a goodly library," abound- 
ing in material for the scribes. The title page 
gives an interesting list of contents. "This book 
John Haconsson owns. There are herein, first 
poems, then how Norway was settled, then the 
story of Eric the Far-traveled, and next, that of 
King Olaf Tryggvason with its episodes, and 
next are the histories of St. Olaf and of the Ork- 
ney Earls, etc. The priest, John Thordsson, has 
written of Eric the Far-traveled, and the histories 
of the two Olafs ; and the priest, Magnus Thor- 
hallsson, has written all before and all after that, 
and has illuminated the whole." 

This book belonged afterward to a rich family 
in the west of the island, who afterward took it 
to their house at Flatey on the eastern coast. 
It has been traced into the possession of Bjorn 
Einarsson the Pilgrim, who died about the year 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 165 

141 5. From him it descended to "Lady Chris- 
tian of Waterfirth," and from her to Bjorn, the 
Governor of Iceland, who was killed by the Eng- 
lish sailors in 1467, and whose son was governor 
in 1477, when Columbus was sailing in the Arctic 
Circle. It remained in this family as an heirloom 
until the year 1630, when the following note was 
made on the title: "This book I, John Finsson, 
own by gift from my father's father, John Bjorns- 
son, whereof proof can be given, and it was de- 
livered to me and in that way made my own by 
my lamented father, Fin Johnsson, personally." 
The book was then given to John Torfason of 
Flatey, who passed it on in 1647 to Bishop Bry- 
niulf of Skalholt, a great patron of literature. 
Torfoeus, who wrote the history of Vinland, 
came to Iceland a few years afterward, "hunting 
after vellums for the king's new library," and he 
conveyed the book to Copenhagen as a contribu- 
tion from the learned bishop. 

The story of the finding of Vinland, as it was 
copied into the Flatey Book, cannot have been 
older than the middle of the fourteenth century, 
since it was about that time that the "Skraelings," 
or Eskimos, first came into contact with the 
Northmen in Greenland. This period is known to 



l66 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

have been marked by a great activity in the col- 
lection of local traditions. It has been described 
as a period of appreciation rather than an age of 
original production. The Icelanders were col- 
lecting the stories connected with their great 
men or the ancestors of their best known fam- 
ilies. When a later generation attempted to 
create as well as to collect, the exploits of the 
native heroes were abandoned, and the Icelandic 
writers gave themselves up, like the rest of the 
world, to stories of Roland and the Paladins, or 
Sir Tristram and the dreamer Merlin. 

All remembrance of the ancient times seems to 
have passed away before the beginning of the six- 
teenth century. Many works, says Mr. Vigfusson, 
were written during this period, but their sub- 
jects were taken from foreign or fictitious 
romances. The English trade, and the change in 
the physical circumstances of Iceland, may have 
had something to do with this "rapid, but com- 
plete oblivion of things past." Even the fifteenth 
century became "a mythical semi-fabulous age" 
to the Icelanders of the succeeding generation; 
they had forgotten the death of Bjorn, the sor- 
rows of the Lady Olof, and the war with the 
English traders. The pedigrees are not carried 



fHE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 16? 

further back than the beginning of the sixteenth 
century. It was not even known, says Mr. Vigfus- 
son, that the age of the Sagas was "looming 
behind." Late in the next century, however, 
the old records were brought to light again, fresh 
pedigrees were arranged, and were joined "by 
false links " to the genealogies of the ancient 
heroes. The Saga of Eric the Red rises into 
importance, as containing the notice of the first 
European born in America; and Snorri, the son 
of Thorfinn from Vinland, is accepted as the 
ancestor of Snorri Sturlusson the historian and 
many other distinguished persons. 

The stories with which we are dealing seem to 
have remained unknown outside Iceland itself until 
the beginning of the seventeenth century. A taste 
for the literature of the North revived when the 
King of Denmark became interested in the ex- 
ploits of his ancestors. The history known as 
the "Heimskringla," or "World-ring," containing 
the lives of the ancient kings of Norway, was 
translated into Danish in 1594, and a number of 
literati were set at work to recover such of the 
historical manuscripts as might still be moldering 
in the farmhouses of Iceland. Among them was 
Arngrim Jonsson, commonly known as Arngrim 



1 68 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the Learned, the author of several important 
works upon the antiquities of his country. He 
brought out in succession a commentary on the 
Kings' Lives, on Constitutional History, and a 
spirited criticism, or "Dissection" as it was 
called, of the libelous account of Iceland pub- 
lished by one Dittmar Blefken. Besides all 
these he was the author of a short history of 
Greenland, in which he inserted a full and impar- 
tial account of the travels of the children of Eric 
the Red. The books used by this great scholar 
are known by his careful references to authority, 
and it is somewhat remarkable that he appears 
never to have seen the Flatey Book, though he 
had authority from the government to examine 
historical records. It is known that he used his 
authority freely ; and he said himself that on one 
occasion he had "no less than twenty-six vellums 
in his possession." His benefice lay in the East- 
ern Province, where he was busily engaged as 
coadjutor to the Bishop of Holar, and by that 
time the Flatey Book had been moved to an- 
other part of the country ; but inasmuch as Arn- 
grim's home was in Wididale, where the famous 
manuscript had been compiled, and near the site 
of the monastery of Thingore, it is not very dififi- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 169 

cult to account for his familiarity with the tradi- 
tion. 

The Saga deals with events at the end of the 
tenth century, when Eric had started with his 
settlers for Greenland. There was an Icelander 
called Heriulf, we are told, who used to trade to 
Norway in partnership with his son Bjorn. As 
soon as Heriulf heard of the new settlement he 
determined to sail off at once without waiting for 
his son, and he arrived in time for an allotment 
of territory, and set up his home at a place which 
he called Heriulf's Ness. 

When Bjorn came to Norway and heard of his 
father's departure he started off also for "the 
strange and remote land," though he had but 
little information as to the route. For three 
days he sailed west, and then was driven far to 
the south by a storm. When the storm was over 
they sailed on for a day and a night, and came to 
a flat island, very woody and free from rocks ; 
then, starting again, they sailed to the northwest 
and arrived in Greenland, passing two more 
islands in their course. 

About the year 1002, Leif, the son of Eric the 
Red, set out for Heriulf's Ness to look for the 
countries which had been thus discovered. The 



tyo THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

first that he found was the island nearest Green- 
land, where he cast anchor. He saw nothing but 
flat rocks and ice, and he called it Helluland, or 
the "land of flagstones." Soon afterward he 
found the flat wood-covered island, and this he 
called Markland, or the "land of woods." Then 
he sailed on for two days and nights with a 
northeast breeze, and came to a much more fer- 
tile coast. They landed on a small island, and 
afterward sailed westward round a promontory, 
and ran the ship into a creek. They determined 
to winter here, as there was plenty of fish, espe- 
cially a large kind of salmon. "The winter was 
not very severe ; they had not nearly as much 
frost and snow as in Iceland or Greenland, and 
they could see the sun for fully six hours on the 
shortest day. They likewise found vines and 
grapes, which the Greenlanders had never seen 
before ; but they had with them a man from the 
South who was no stranger to that sort of fruit, 
and who said that he was born in a country 
where the vine grew in abundance. Leif re- 
turned to Greenland in the spring, and he called 
the country Vinland." The compiler of the 
Saga enters into minute details about the cli- 
mate. "It was so fine," he says, "that there was 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 171 

no need of hay for stall-feeding the cattle ; there 
was no frost throughout the winter, and the grass 
was but little withered." According to him the 
sun rose at 7.30 A. M. on the shortest day, and 
set at 4.30 P. M. ; and this calculation would suit 
the latitude of Massachusetts; but the sta!:ement 
as to the absence of frost would carry us to the 
climate of Virginia. 

We now come to the voyage of Thorwald, the 
second son of Eric. He is said to have started 
from Greenland with a crew of thirty men, and 
to have wintered in the huts which his brother 
had built in Vinland. During that winter he 
reconnoitered toward, the west, and in the sum- 
mer following he surveyed the eastern districts; 
and in the course of the year after that he started 
again to explore a number of uninhabited islands 
to the westward. Toward the end of their stay 
they came one day upon three small boats of a 
kind quite unknown to them, "made of skins, 
with ribs or bones bound together with twigs." 
There were three men lying by each boat upon 
the shore, two keeping watch and the third 
asleep. Of these men they killed eight, and the 
ninth escaped. Soon afterward a crowd of 
natives appeared, armed with bows and arrows. 



172 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

who attacked the Greenlanders. Thorwald re- 
ceived a wound in the face, of which he died. 
He was buried near a cape on the east coast, 
which they called Crossness. The others stayed 
on in Vinland for the winter, and in the spring 
'.h:y loaded their ship with vines and the boat 
with grapes, "and so returned to Greenland in 
good condition." 

Boats of the kind mentioned in this extract, 
though unknown among the Northmen, were 
often mentioned by the classical writers. The 
Iberians of Spain "built their ships with skins, 
and traversed the seas in their boats of hide"; 
and their canoes were compared by Lucan with 
the curraghs used in Britain. There were old 
Greek stories of the tin fetched from islands in 
the Atlantic "in wicker boats sewn with hides." 
But perhaps the nearest approach to the Ice- 
landic story is to be found in a passage of ^thi- 
cus about the boats used in the age of Alexander 
by the pirates of the Hyrcanian Sea. "They are 
long and narrow, woven thickly with osiers and 
sewn round with goat skins and bear skins, so as 
to resist the waves and the wi ds ; and they are 
handy and swift for pillaging the neighboring 
countries and islands." It may be remembered 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 1 73 

also in the same connection that Olaus Magnus, 
on seeing some Eskimo fishing boats hung up 
in St. Halward's Church at Christiania, thought 
that they must be some of the diving vessels 
described in the legends about the Caspian 
pirates, "with which the sea robbers would claw 
hold of a passing ship and scuttle her by boring 
through the planks" ; though these diving vessels 
were not a whit more real than the "ship of 
glass" in which Alexander the Great was fabled 
to have explored the depths of the sea. 

There are other touches of the same kind 
which seem to indicate that the compilers of the 
Saga were drawing upon the common stores of 
mediaeval romance. Next to Vinland, for in- 
stance, we hear of "Whiteman's Land," some- 
times called Western Albania, or "Ireland over 
the Sea" ; and just in the same way the next 
country to Hyrcania was the great realm of 
Albania, which was so called, says the Book of 
Mandeville, "because the folk ben whiter than 
in other marches thereabouten." So again, when 
one of the Greenlanders is killed in fight by a 
swift-running one-legged monster, we can but 
think of the old travelers' tale that "in this con- 
tree be folk that have but one foot, and thei gon 



174 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

SO fast that it is marvaylle." The Saga-writer's 
story of the honey-dew is evidently imported 
from the classics. When the Greenlanders 
landed on the first island the weather was serene 
and still, "the dew was on the grass, and they 
touched and tasted it, and thought that nothing 
had ever been so sweet." According to the tra- 
ditions about Alexander, the Greeks found cer- 
tain trees in Hyrcania, of which the leaves were 
bedewed with honey "engendered in the air." 
"There is a tree in that country," says Diodorus, 
"which distills honey from its leaves, and this the 
natives gather in great plenty." These soft 
sweet showers, and the unsown corn and vines, 
appear in every vision of the Islands of the 
Blessed. We come te a land where "the earth 
unplowed brings forth her yearly crop, and the 
vine flourishes untouched by the pruner's hook." 
If the young Marcellus could only have lived, 
according to the poet's prayer, the oaks wouiM be 
distilling their "honey, pure as the dew," 

Plains will be turned golden and wave with ripening corn. 
Purple grapes shall blush on the tangled wilderness thorn. 

We are told that the next voyage was under- 
taken by Thorstein, the third son of Eric the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 175 

Red. He set out with his wife Gudrida, but 
never found the right way. They were driven 
about by storms all the summer, and only got 
home in the first week of winter, when Thorstein 
died of the plague. Gudrida was married again 
to an Icelander called Thorfinn Karlsefne. They 
determined to establish a colony in Vinland, and 
when they arrived they found plenty of provi- 
sions ; the crops were fruitful, the fish abounded 
in the streams, and they were so lucky as to find 
a stranded "rorqual," or whale of the largest 
kind. 

About the end of the year the natives ap- 
peared in great numbers, and traded skins and 
furs for food. In the course of the next summer 
they came again, and a chief was killed in trying 
to take an ax from one of the Greenlanders ; and 
in the following season they came again, pre- 
pared this time for war, but were defeated with 
great loss. These natives are always called 
"Skraelings," a term which is more regularly con- 
fined to the Eskimos; but none of the true 
Eskimos have ever been found to the south of 
Labrador. There is nothing in the Saga to iden- 
tify these natives with the Tuscaroras or any 
pther R^d Indian tribe. On the contrary, whei:) 



176 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

anything like a description is given, it is of a 
kind which might be expected in a romance. 
Black men, like specters, form a funereal host. 
They sail up from the South, as if they came 
from Ethiopia. "They were black, and of fierce 
looks, with matted hair ; their eyes were very 
large, and their faces broad." They are in fact 
like the peoples of Gog and Magog whom the 
Greeks could not subdue, the Caspian tribes and 
"Turchi with sooty faces and crow-black hair." 
The Syriac version of the legend of Alexander 
describes such tribes as living in the Hyrcanian 
Forest. "In that wood there were trees bearing 
fruit, and their fruit was very luscious, and with- 
in the wood there were wild men, whose faces 
were like ravens, and they held darts in their 
hands, and were clothed with skins." 

When Thorfinn left Vinland he brought home, 
so the story ran, a precious cargo of furs and 
hides, with vines and grapes and specimens of 
timber. A stranger from Bremen offered to buy 
a piece of wood like a broomstick, of the kind 
called "Mausur" or Butcher's broom, which was 
believed to keep off mice and other vermin from 
houses. "Thorfinn refused, unless the merchant 
would pay its weight in gold, and upon these 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. I?? 

terms it was sold at last." Other versions of the 
story put the price at four ounces of gold ; and 
in modern times the whole anecdote has been 
exaggerated until the merchant appears as pur- 
chasing a quantity of precious "mazer wood" or 
a cargo of bird's-eye maple. 

Yet one more voyage to Vinland was said to 
have been made by a child of Eric the Red. 
His daughter Freydisa had taken part in the 
voyage when Leif made his first discovery. 
After Thorfinn's return she determined to go out 
again, and persuaded her husband to take part in 
founding a settlement. They provided one ship, 
and another was furnished by two Icelanders, 
with a crew of thirty men, five of them accom- 
panied by their wives. Soon after their arrival a 
bitter quarrel broke out, and in the end all the 
Icelandic men were killed at the instigation of 
Freydisa; and, as the women had been spared, 
she herself took an ax and cut them down. The 
story, as Mr. Vigfusson pointed out, takes some 
of its coloring from the "Attila Lay," in which 
the tale of the Niebelungs was sung with a pecu- 
liar "savagery and grimness." In that version 
the Lady Gudrun appears as a furious Medea, 
quite unlike "the gentle Andromache" or the 



i1^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Electra of the German poem: "When the high- 
born lady saw that the game was a bloody one, 
she hardened her heart ; she threw off her man- 
tle, and took a naked sword in her hand, and 
fought for the life of her kinsmen." 

A wilder version of these traditions, known as 
the "History of Thorfinn Karlsefne," was pre- 
served by Bjorn of Scardsa, an eminent Icelandic 
antiquary, who died at a great age in 1656. The 
main lines of the story may still be discerned in 
this version, though most of the details are dif- 
ferent. Many of the classical references have been 
omitted, and are replaced by local allusions, show- 
ing that the compiler was well acquainted with the 
habits of the settlers in Greenland. Bjorn of 
Scardsa was a self-educated yeoman who took to 
the study of antiquities when he was about fifty 
years old ; and he is described as having a poet- 
ical and imaginative turn of mind, and "a force 
of character and enthusiasm which led to his 
dicta being eagerly accepted by his countrymen." 
He wrote a history of Greenland, in which the 
extinction of the colony was described and the 
vague reports as to its former site were discussed. 
Some parts of the work were taken from a MS. 
called "Hawk's Book," noted as "a very maga- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 179 

zine of antiquities," and ascribed to one "Hawk," 
a well known magistrate, who died in Iceland 
about 1334, and who, according to his own 
account, was the ninth in direct descent from 
Thorfinn. 

The legend of Thorfinn was inserted in Bjorn's 
history of Greenland without any note as to its 
origin or comparative antiquity. It reads like a 
travesty of the story in the Fl^tey Book ; but it 
has a certain literary interest as a storehouse of 
magic and witchcraft, and it has at any rate pre- 
served that picture of the spae wife in a Hun- 
landish belt, "in a cap of black lamb's wool and 
a blue vest spangled with jewels," which is familiar 
to all who know Gray's version of the Descent 
of Odin. 

Some of the characters in the older Saga reap- 
pear in the new story and take part in its strange 
adventures. Thorfinn and his wife deprive the 
children of Eric of all the credit of finding and 
naming the new countries, except that they are 
accompanied by Thorwald and his fierce sister, 
Freydisa, with her husband from Iceland. The 
travelers go first to Bjarney, or Disco Island, the 
northernmost settlement in Baffins Bay, and 
turning there, after a journey of a day and a 



l8o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

night, they found a stony region, "and this they 
called Helluland." Another day's sail brought 
them to a woodland district, "and to this they 
gave the name of Markland." Then they sailed 
away to the south, and came to a keel-shaped 
promontory standing out between long, white 
shores. "King Olaf had once given to Leif 
Ericsson two Scotch folk, a man and woman 
called Hake and Hekia, who could run as swiftly 
as wild beasts." These were sent out as spies to 
explore the land, and after three days they re- 
turned with a bunch of grapes and "an ear of 
new sown wheat." Then they went on south- 
ward, and came to an island covered with nest- 
ing eider ducks, and they wintered there. In the 
spring they found a whale cast up, but it had 
been procured by the spells of their huntsman, 
"a tall, dark man like a giant," and they were all 
smitten with disease. When the remains of the 
ill gotten food were thrown away the weather 
cleared, and they got plenty of deer and fish, 
besides eggs from the island. Still they had not 
found Vinland, and some complained that not a 
drop of wine had yet crossed their lips They 
accordingly agreed to divide their forces and to 
search about in different directions. Some went 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. i8l 

north, and were driven across to Ireland. Thor- 
finn and the rest sailed far to the south, and came 
to a sandy estuary ; and here at last they saw the 
self-sown corn and the vines along the slopes of 
the hills. 

After a while they were visited by the savages, 
who came in canoes from the south, with their 
poles waving in the sunshine "like corn shaken 
by the wind." A few months afterward the 
black men came in crowds, so that the bay 
seemed to be "sprinkled with coals," so great 
was the multitude of their boats of hide. The 
Greenlanders, though successful in fight, deter- 
mined to abandon the region of vines, and to go 
back to the estuary and the eider duck island. 
From this point Thorfinn made several voyages 
of exploration. In one of these Thorwald, son 
of Eric the Red, was killed by a one-legged mon- 
ster. In Markland they caught some native 
children, who told them of a neighboring coun- 
try, where men walked in white robes carrying 
banners and shouting aloud ; and this, they 
thought, might be the Greater Ireland, or 
"Whiteman's Land." 

The whole account of their way of living might 
have been written by anyone who had passed a 



1 82 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

summer in Greenland ; and some of the incidents 
correspond very closely with the account of that 
country compiled by Ivor Bardson about the 
year 1349. According to the description of 
Thorfinn's colony, there was abundance of grass 
for the fllocks and herds, the rivers were full of 
fish, and the woods well stocked with game. 
The settlers caught sea-fish after the Greenland 
fashion ; they made pits and trenches in the estu- 
ary near the high-water mark, and when the tide 
went out they found halibuts caught in the shal- 
lows. The halibut, indeed, is a deep-sea fish; 
but the Greenlanders catch salmon in this way, 
by building stone weirs across a tidal stream, and 
there are places where the rocks make a natural 
trap of the same kind for seals. Ivor Bardson 
described a lake near the Church of St. Nicholas, 
which rises with the tide and the rain ; "and 
when the water falls a great number of fish are 
left upon the sand." As to the climate in sum- 
mer, he says that a fjord near the Iceblink Moun- 
tain has a, number of small islands in it with 
nesting birds, "and on both sides extend great 
plains covered with green grass wherever you go." 
The frost in Greenland, according to his account, 
was not so severe as in Iceland or Norway. 



THE CARkEk OF COLUMBUS. 1S3 

"The fruits," he says, "grow there as large as 
apples, and are of good flavor, and there is corn 
of the best kind"; and it is true that there are 
wild service trees that bring their fruit to matu- 
rity, and pulse and oats of a sort in some specially 
favored localities. Modern travelers have re- 
ported of Disco Island itself, the "Bjarney" of 
Thorfinn's voyage, that the weather in summer is 
pleasant and the scenery delightful; "food is 
delicious and abundant, and labor an agreeable 
pastime." 

It was thought at one time that the ecclesias- 
tical history of the north might furnish some 
information as to the alleged discovery of Vin- 
land. The Icelandic Annals have been quoted 
to show that one Eric of Upsi was ordained 
Bishop of Greenland in 1 121, but soon afterward 
sailed "to look for Vinland," and was not heard 
of again. This Eric, however, seems to have 
been only a private missionary. Greenland be- 
came subject to the King of Norway in 1123, 
and Arnold, the first bishop, was appointed in 
the following year. The archives of the Vatican 
contain a few notices of the Greenland churches. 
There was a Papal Brief in 1275 appointing a 
commissioner to collect the Greenlanders' contri- 



1^4 THE CAREER OF COLUMBU^. 

butions toward a crusade. In 1326 an account 
of the duty received in Greenland, amounting, 
with the Peter's pence, to about a ton of walrus 
ivory, was forwarded from Bergen to Rome. 
There are very few other entries on this subject. 
One Alpho is mentioned as being Bishop of Gar- 
dar when the "Skraelings," or Eskimos, were 
first seen in the country. We are told that 
about 1386 the navigation ceased, but in 1408 
the Archbishop of Drontheim consecrated An- 
drew Bishop of Greenland in case Henry, the 
former bishop, was dead ; but it was never 
known whether he arrived at his diocese. It ap- 
pears also from a Brief of Eugenius the Fourth 
that in 1433 Fra Bartolomeo de Santo Ypolito 
was appointed to succeed Nicholas, the bishop of 
Greenland, then lately deceased. 

The last official recognition of the Scandi- 
navian colony is contained in a letter written in 
1448 by Pope Nicholas the Fifth to certain bish- 
ops in Iceland. The Pope speaks of Greenland 
as an island in the Northern Ocean, where for 
nearly six centuries the Church founded by St. 
Olaf had flourished. "But now it is thirty years 
since the barbarians, coming against them in a 
fleet from the shores of the heathen, have devas- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS, 185 

tated the cathedral church and the country with 
fire and sword ; only the parish churches were 
left, which they could not easily approach in the 
clefts of the hills." The inhabitants had been 
carried off into slavery ; but many of them had 
afterward returned, and were desirous of restor- 
ing the services of religion, though they were too 
poor to maintain bishops and priests. The Pope 
ended by asking the Icelandic bishops to ordain 
a colleague for Greenland, and to send him out 
to that country if the distance were not too 
great. 

No serious attempt was made to resume inter- 
course with the lost colony till the reign of Chris- 
tian the Second of Denmark, when Archbishop 
Walkendorf endeavored to find out its situation ; 
but he died in 1523, "and his benevolent plans 
were buried with him." 

Martin Frobisher, in searching for the North- 
west Passage in 1576, reached the coast of Green- 
land, which he called Meta Incognita, and an 
inlet known as Frobisher's Strait. He returned 
in the following season to look for a supposed 
gold mine that turned out to be only a vein of 
pyrites; and in 1578 he was sent to establish a 
colony there, though the project was soon aban- 



1 86 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

doned. Crantz, the historian of Greenland, 
thought that the picture of Meta Incognita 
agreed very closely with what was afterward 
found in the country. But he added a remark 
on the wild tales told by some of Frobisher's 
sailors which has some bearing upon the value of 
the traditions about Vinland. As to the civ- 
ilized natives and a king decked out with jewels, 
we must take it for granted, he says, "either that 
they consulted the prevalent taste, requiring in 
every new voyage gold and silver mountains, rich 
palaces, and a shower of impossible adventures, 
or else that the editors embellished the narrative 
out of the ballads and romances at that time in 
vogue." 



CHAPTER XI. 

" From the north 
Of Norumbega and the Samoed shore 
Bursting their brazen dungeons, armed with ice. 
And snow and hail and stormy gust and flaw, 
Boreas and Cscias." 

About a century before Columbus crossed the 
Atlantic there was a great and terrible eruption 
of the volcano of Mount Hecla in Iceland ; and 
about fifty years after his death distorted ac- 
counts of its fire spouts and lava floods began 
to be known in Italy. A great interest in the 
North had been revived at Rome by the labors 
of Archbishop Walkendorf and the zeal which he 
had shown in recovering the traditions of Green- 
land. The finding of America had given a fresh 
value to all the old stories of the sea. "This is 
an age," it was said, "most earnest in studying 
all kinds of new information, and especially 
about those countries which have been made 
known through the courage and energy of our 
ancestors." 

Qne result of this temper of the public mind 
187 



1 88 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

was a fashion of dressing up the details of forgot- 
ten travels, so as to bring them into some connec- 
tion with the new world, and the credit of 
Columbus was, of course, as much diminished as 
the fame of the older travelers was exalted. 
Lord Bacon even made the unjust accusation 
that Columbus had suppressed what he had 
learned about certain lands, which at first were 
taken for islands, but were afterward shown to 
be portions of the American continent. The 
admiral, it was hinted, had evidence that his 
plans were correct, much better than "the proph- 
ecy of Seneca," or Plato's antiquities, or "the 
nature of the tides and land winds" ; and if he 
kept silence on all this it must have been because 
he would appear as no man's follower, but only 
as "the child of his own science and fortune." 

The accusation was chiefly based on the state- 
ments in a book published in 1558 by Nicolo 
Zeno of Venice. It professed to contain the dis- 
coveries of two members of his family, who had 
been in the North about the year 1390, and had 
written letters about "Frisland" and Greenland 
and other far distant lands, and had indeed put 
together a complete book on the subject, which 
had, however, long since disappeared. "I arn 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 189 

grieved," said the editor of these letters, "that 
this book, and many other writings on this sub- 
ject, have suffered an unfortunate fate. I was 
but a child when they came to my hands, and I 
tore them up, as children will, and threw them 
away, not knowing what they were." He as- 
sured his 'readers, however, that he had put it all 
together again as well as he knew how. He was 
also in possession of a map, very imperfectly 
designed, which proved to be a fruitful source of 
mistakes to the explorers of the Northwest Pas- 
sage. Of this he writes : "I have thought it well 
to make a copy of the sailing chart, which I have 
found among my family antiquities, and although 
it is rotten with age, I have succeeded with it 
tolerably well." 

On examining a copy of this map it is easy to 
see that it contained the names of places in Shet- 
land, which had been transferred by mistake to 
the coast of Iceland. This made it necessary to 
move the place of Iceland itself further up 
toward the north ; and we accordingly find a vol- 
cano, a great monastery, and a town, set upon an 
imaginary coast line extending from the north of 
vGreenland to the vicinity of Spitzbergen. 

"Frisland," that icy region for which our sail- 



igo THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ors long sought in vain, was shown as a large 
island lying far out in the western ocean. The 
country has long ago been identified with the 
scattered Isles of Faroe by means of the local 
names, which were but thinly diguised in the 
Italian rendering, and especially by a very defin- 
ite reference to the Monk Rock lying to the 
south of the group, which is still a well known 
resort of the North Sea fishermen. The ancient 
volume of letters also contained many references 
to a prince called "Zinco," or "Zichmni" ; and he 
has now been clearly identified with Henry Sin- 
clair, Earl of Orkney, who gained possession of 
the islands in 1390, and died about ten years 
afterward. 

When Frobisher sailed to his Meta Incognita 
and the desolate coasts of Bairn's Bay, he was 
always looking for the kingdoms described by 
the Venetian merchants. In his first voyage he 
hoped at one time that he had come upon their 
track. He caught a glimpse of a country that he 
took for Frisland, "rising like pinnacles of 
steeples, and all covered with snow." It was a 
ragged and high land, shut in by drifts and 
stranded icebergs, and rendered almost inaccessi- 
ble by its walls, mountains, and bulwarks of ice. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. ipi 

"It extends," says he, "very far to the north- 
ward, as it seemed to us, and as appears by a 
description set out by two brethren, who were 
Venetians, the first known Christians that discov- 
ered this land, about 200 years since ; and they 
have in their sea cards set out every ■ part 
thereof." 

Many adventures befell the merchants in their 
long service with Sinclair. We must notice in 
particular their description of the monastery set 
by a burning mountain, and the visit of the fleet 
to a quaint kingdom near Bantry Bay ; and above 
all, we ought carefully to examine the wonderful 
"Story of the Fisherman," with its pictures of 
life "in cold Estotiland" and among the snows of 
Drogio. This story contains the gist of Bacon's 
accusation against Columbus; and in our own 
time it has often been treated as a summary of 
what was known about Vinland by those who 
kept up in the North "a mercantile connection 
with America." It has even been praised as a 
very fair description of the country "as far down 
as Mexico," considering that it was written at 
the close of the fourteenth century. 

Nicolo Zeno, it is said, made an expedition 
from Bressay in Shetland, and sailed vvith thre§ 



192 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ships to Greenland ; "and here he found a monas- 
tery of ^he Order of Friars Preachers and a 
church dedicated to St. Thomas, very close to a 
hill which vomited fire like Vesuvius and Etna." 
There he saw a spring of hot water, used for 
warming the houses and gardens ; and it was so 
boiling hot that it cooked the food, and baked 
the bread in stone pots "as if it had been put 
into an oven." The monks, said the traveler, 
made excellent lime out of the stones that are 
cast like cinders from the mouth of the burning 
mountain ; and these same stones, when cold, are 
very useful for building, because they will never 
yield or break, unless cut with iron. "Hither in 
summer come vessels from the neighboring 
islands, and from the North Cape, and from 
Drontheim, bringing all sorts of goods in ex- 
change for stockfish and hides" ; and to this 
place, he added, the Friars resorted from Norway 
and Sweden, but most of all from Shetland. He 
describes the native boats as being made out of 
the skins and bones of fish in the shape of a 
weaver's shuttle, and as being fitted with "a kind 
of sleeve" for throwing out the water. The cli- 
mate was bitterly cold for quite nine months at a 
time, and ships were continually detained by the 



THE CAREJER OF COLUMBUS. t^j 

sea being frozen round them. The Italian was 
not accustomed to such sharp cold, and was glad 
to get back to Thorshavn, where he soon after- 
ward died. His brother Antonio, after his ad- 
ventures in Ireland, went with Sinclair to the 
same country. They saw for themselves the 
mountain pouring out smoke at a considerable 
distance from the harbor. The soldiers sent out 
to explore said that they found a great fire issu- 
ing from the foot of a hill, and a spring not far 
off, running with a stuff like pitch, which flowed 
into the sea. There were multitudes of half-wild 
people living about the hill in caves and holes. 
Nothing was said on this occasion about a mon- 
astery, with its lovely garden crowded with 
foreign visitors, and it seems to be assumed that 
they had got to another volcano. This may be 
the reason why Olaus Magnus spoke vaguely of 
wild fires and flaming streams being seen in sev- 
eral regions of the North, and why Don Ferdinand 
wrote in the same unprecise way about receiving 
accounts of northern islands that were always on 
fire. But to some extent these may be reminis- 
cences of that "Christian Odyssey" in which St. 
Brandan leaves the Isle of Vines and sails north- 
ward "in that clear water" until he comes to an 



194 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

island most dark, and full of stench and smoke, 
and then again blew the south wind and drove 
them further into the north, "where they saw a 
hill on fire, and the fire stood on each side like a 
wall." 

No volcano has ever been found in Greenland. 
There were some warm springs at a place called 
Ounartok; but Ivor Bardson's survey showed 
that they used to belong to the bishop and to 
certain Benedictine nuns, and not to the Canons 
of St. Olaf, who owned the only establishment 
that could have been described as a monastery. 
There are many hot springs near Mount Hecla, 
some of which have been used for centuries for 
warming baths and dwelling houses, but we find 
no record of the Friars or of any such church of 
St. Thomas as is mentioned in the story. There 
was, however, a monastery at Archangel, which 
had become known to travelers about the time 
when the book was published ; and several of the 
particulars in Zeno's description would suit the 
circumstances of the White Sea trade. It seems 
likely, on the whole, that this part of the story 
was made up out of the reports from several dif- 
ferent places. It had reference in the main to 
the great eruption in Iceland ; but the unlearned 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 195 

narrator reduced the volcanic display to effects 
that might have been observed in a little Italian 
solfatara. 

The account of a visit to "Icaria" bears some 
signs of an authentic narrative. This country 
appears on Zeno's map, far off in the sea near 
Labrador; but it has been restored by modern 
research to the latitude of the "Kingdom of 
Kerry." Sinclair is shown arriving with his fleet 
at a harbor on the western side; the king is 
on the shore with his nobles, and a rabble of 
"kernes and galloglasses." The country had 
often been invaded before, and out of each for- 
eign host one man had been persuaded to stay, in 
order to teach the natives the language and cus- 
toms of his people. Now came out the long boat 
with no less than ten of these interpreters, but 
none of them could be understood except one 
who came from Shetland. He could, of course, 
talk Norse with the sailors, even if he had never 
heard the uncouth dialect of the Faroeae. It is 
a pity that we are not told more of the languages 
of the other interpreters. They knew Irish, but 
not Italian, and among them they must have 
been ready, we suppose, with English and French 
and Lowland Scotch, and Erse of the Highlands, 



196 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

with Welsh and Manx and Cornish, and perhaps 
the North-Irish dialects, and Pictish of Galloway. 
Sinclair would have understood the talk of most 
of the interpreters, but only the Shetlander was 
taken to his ship, accompanied by the bard or 
"Sennachie," who could speak of the royal pedi- 
gree and receive dispatches for the king. Being 
asked what were the names of the place and 
people and by whom they were governed, he 
said that it was the land of Icaria, and that the 
king himself was called Icarus, after the first of 
his line, who was the son of Daedalus, one of the 
ancient Irish kings, and had given them a code 
of laws; and the sea thereabout was called the 
Icarian Sea, because their first king had been 
drowned there ; which all seems like the classical 
jargon that an Irish bard would have brought 
forth. "They were all content," said the mes- 
senger, "with the state into which they had been 
called, and would neither alter their laws nor 
admit any stranger among them, and for this 
they were all prepared to fight to death." But 
they would make the usual exception, and would 
be glad to take one of the Italian strangers, and 
to make him at home, in the same way as they 
had done with the ten other interpreters. Sin- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. i97 

clair, we are told, made no reply, except to ask 
where he could find another harbor, and so sailed 
off to the other side and landed a party to get 
wood and water. But the natives lit beacon fires 
to rouse the country, and came running down 
armed with bows and arrows, "more like beasts 
than men," as the Italian thought. Their rage, 
he says, increased more and more, "and all the 
way to the east cape we saw them on the hilltops 
and along the coast, running to keep up with us, 
and howling and shooting at us from afar to 
show their hatred." 

The fleet stood out to sea and proceeded as-far 
as Greenland. They were bound, according to 
Zeno, for a country in the far west which was 
called "Estotiland," and they had on board some 
of the natives of those parts to serve as guides. 
This, of course, is a reference to the story of the 
fisherman, to which the sailors, as we are told, 
gave full credence "from having had much expe- 
rience in strange novelties," and which would 
transfer the fame of Columbus to the unnamed 
Faroese if the public were able to believe it. 

The finding of the New World, said Ortelius, 
is not unworthily ascribed to Columbus, for by 
him, indeed, it was "in a manner first discovered," 



19^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

and was made known by him and profitably com- 
municated to the Christian world in the year 
1492. "Howbeit I find that the north part 
thereof, called Estotiland, which most of all ex- 
tendeth toward our Europe and the islands of the 
same, was long ago found out by certain fishers 
of the Isle of Frisland, driven by tempest on the 
shore, and was afterward, about the year 1390, 
discovered anew by one Antonio Zeno, a gentle- 
man of Venice." 

Some of the local touches in Zeno's letter to 
his brother at home, help us to realize the abory 
as personally related by the fisherman, and we 
should have known much more about it if the 
Italian editor had not changed the style "and 
some of the old-fashioned words." As it stands, 
it appears to contain an account of Scotland by a 
Faroese cast away there about the year 1370, 
when his native islands had no connection with 
the Sinclairs or anything Scottish. Four boats, 
it appears, had set out in winter for the deep-sea 
fishing, in which the Faroese used to row out 
forty or fifty miles from land to sink their lines 
for the cod and ling, or "the white fish," as they 
were generally called. In Sir Walter Scott's 
sketch of the ling fishery in Shetland he speaks 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 199 

of the danger and suffering which lend a dignity 
to the trade. The banks are distant, and the 
men are twenty or thirty hours away from home ; 
"and under unfavorable circumstances of wind 
and tide they remain at sea for two or three days, 
with a very small stock of provisions, in a boat of 
a construction which seems extremely slender, 
and are sometimes heard of no more." These 
boats are the chnker-built "sixareens," so called 
from being pulled with six oars. The boats men- 
tioned by Zeno had crews of six men apiece. 
They were caught by a storm on the fishing 
banks and driven over the sea for many days, 
and at last they saw lying to the westward the 
island of Estotiland, distant, as the fishermen 
thought, at least a thousand miles from their 
home. "One of the boats was wrecked, and the 
crew of six men were taken up into a fair and 
populous city, where there was no one who could 
understand their language out of all the king's 
interpreters, except one who spoke Latin." He 
had been wrecked on that coast himself, and he 
seems to have been able to turn the Faroese dia- 
lect into something which the courtiers could 
understand. But the fisherman told Zeno that 
he had seen Latin books in the royal library, 



26o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

which none of the people were able to read. 
They remained in that country for five years. It 
seemed a little smaller than Iceland, fertile in 
corn, and abounding in gold and other metals. 
In the midst of it rose a high mountain range 
from which four rivers came to water the coun- 
txy ; and there were forests of immense extent. 
The people seemed to be very intelligent, and as 
well advanced in the arts as the Italians, or so 
the Northern fishermen believed. They were 
said to trade with "Greenland," by Avhich we 
may understand the North of Scandinavia, and to 
bring back, in return for their own goods, furs 
and brimstone and pitch. "They also make 
beer," added Zeno, "which is a kind of drink that 
the Northern peoples take as we take wine." 

They knew how to build ships, and also how 
to sail them, the latter being an art in which the 
Faroese were somewhat deficient ; but Ave are 
told that they had not the loadstone, nor the 
needle which the Spaniards called "the messen- 
ger between the stone and the star." The com- 
pass was used but sparingly at that time, except 
in the Mediterranean waters, and it is somewhat 
difficult to believe that the Faroese were familiar 
with the instrument while their neig-hbors were 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 201 

ignorant of its use. The story goes, however, 
that the castaways were able to show the advan- 
tage of steering by the magnetic needle, and 
were held in high estimation accordingly. 

Up to this point there has been nothing in the 
story that cannot be easily explained. But the 
account of the fisherman's later wanderings 
among the polar cannibals, and of temples where 
men were sacrificed and eaten by tribes living 
further to the south, appears to be compounded 
with fables about Scythian savages at least as old 
as the time of Adam of Bremen. Even in the six- 
teenth century we find in serious works, such as 
Albert Krantz's history of the North and Paolo 
Giovio's description of Britain, foolish stories 
about danger from cannibals, which can be traced 
through Frisian legends to early mythological 
Sagas, and perhaps may even be connected with 
the legend of Polyphemus the Giant. 

Immediately to the south of "Estotiland" was 
a great and populous country, said to be very 
rich in gold, which the fisherman left otherwise 
undescribed. There was also a country called 
"Drogio," to be reached by a southward voyage; 
but in its main extent, if the descriptions are 
carefully considered, it stretched upward toward 



202 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the Arctic Circle somewhere about the upper 
provinces of Russia. The fisherman said that he 
and his comrades were sent with a fleet of twelve 
ships to Drogio ; but when they arrived they 
were taken up into the country, and most of 
them were devoured by the savages. The sur- 
vivors saved their lives by showing the natives 
how to fish with nets. Every chieftain was anx- 
ious to learn their "wonderful art," and was 
ready to make war on his neighbors upon the 
chance of getting hold of the ingenious captives. 
In the course of thirteen years the fisherman was 
transferred in this way to at least five and twenty 
masters, so that he got to know the whole coun- 
try, which was very large, almost like a new 
world. It was inhabited by naked savages, who 
suffered cruelly from the cold. They lived by 
hunting, but they had not any knowledge of 
metals, and used wooden lances and rude bows 
strung with strips of hide. 

Far away from these squalid hyperboreans the 
wanderers found a country with a temperate 
climate, inhabited by nations of a more civilized 
kind. The further one went toward the south- 
west the more refinement was observed. "In 
those parts," said the fisherman, "they have somq 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 203 

knowledge and usage of gold and silver; and 

they have cities, and temples where they offer 

men in sacrifice and eat them afterward." 

Now after many years this man determined to 

make his way home, to the skerries and stacks 

and whirling tides of Faroe, and the fisher boys 

far out at sea with their songs of home, 

And we must have labor and hunger and pain, 
Ere we dance with the maids of Dunrossness again. 

He pressed it upon the companions who had 
wandered with him for so many years, but they 
had given up all hopes and thoughts about 
home ; "and so they gave him God speed ! and 
stayed with the cannibals." But he made his 
escape through the forests and came upon the 
road to Drogio, and found a friendly chieftain 
who passed him on again till he came to some of 
his old masters, and they sent him on from one 
to another, and so after a long time and with 
great toil he got back to Drogio itself, and there 
abode for about three years. 

One day the fisherman heard some of the 
natives talking about strangers having arrived, 
and he ran down to the port and found that 
there were ships from Estotiland. None of thq 
saliors could talk the language of Drogio, so that 



204 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

they were glad of his services as an interpreter; 
and when they left he went with them, and 
joined their trading venture. We are told that 
in the end he became a rich man, and fitted out a 
vessel of his own, and returned home to end his 
days in peace. Sinclair, says Zeno, was resolved 
to send out a fleet to explore these golden lands; 
"but our great preparations for the voyage to 
Estotiland were begun in an unlucky hour, for 
exactly three days before our start the fisherman 
died." 

The whole story has been called the puzzle of 
antiquarians. Some parts of it are clear enough, 
but others can hardly be explained without 
allowing that the editor wove in a few incidents 
from the Spanish discoveries. But it seems obvi- 
ous that the original story had nothing to do 
with Vinland or any colony of Scandinavians sur- 
viving there into the lifetime of Columbus. The 
fisherman was thought to have died about fifty 
years before Columbus was born, and the chil- 
dren of the sailors from Estotiland, and of those 
who went out to find the New World again, or 
some of the very men themselves, would have 
met the admiral when he visited the north. 
This is whi^t gives an interest to this ancient 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 205 

story of the sea. It seems highly probable that 
Columbus actually visited the Faroe Isles, and in 
that case we may be sure that he would touch at 
the port of Thorshavn. He came upon places, 
as he said to his son, where the tide rose "six 
and twenty ells," or about fifty feet according to 
English measurement. There is no place which 
seems to answer this description except that 
rocky group where the flood-tide is caught and 
entangled in deep clefts and channels and is 
driven to a prodigious height. There are, of 
course, high tides in the Severn, and on the coast 
of Normandy; but Columbus was referring dis- 
tinctly to the North Sea, as it stretches between 
Norway and Iceland ; and in that direction there 
is no place to which his words could refer except 
the stony and desolate rocks which were ruled 
by Sinclair, the "Prince of Frisland." 



CHAPTER XII. 

"The slender cocoa's drooping crown of plumes. 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The luster of the long convolvuluses 
That coiled around the stately stems, and ran 
Even to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world, 
All these he saw." 

After his return from the north, Columbus 
appears to have lived for some time at Porto 
Santo. His fondness for the place is shown by 
certain incidents in his later career, for we know 
that he would go a little out of his course to 
spend a few hours on his favorite island. Thus, 
when starting on the Third Voyage, he went first 
to Porto Santo, "and there he heard mass, and 
gave orders to take in wood and water, and that 
very same night he sailed away to Madeira" ; and 
on another occasion he detached one of the ships 
to visit the island "on a certain matter of pri- 
vate business." 

His son Diego said that he also resided for a 
time at Madeira, and the same fact is mentioned 
by Las Casas ; and an old house at Funchal was 

zp6 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 207 

shown until lately as his home, though it is prob- 
able that he only paid visits there to one of the 
rich Flemish merchants. He was not concerned 
with the trade of the rising colony, with the 
fields of corn and cane, or the new vineyards 
which travelers described as one of the wonders 
of the world. He continued, no doubt, to deal 
in maps and charts, but his real business in Ma- 
deira was the collection of all kinds of informa- 
tion that bore upon his intended enterprise. 

Whenever the chance occurred he would go 
out on a summer voyage. At one time he was 
the guest of his brother-in-law, Correa, who had 
been appointed to the captaincy of Graciosa, and 
sailed about the archipelago of the Azores ; and 
on other occasions he visited the Portuguese fac- 
tories in Morocco or at the mouth of Rio del 
Ouro. As he enlarged the circle of his observa- 
tions he advanced to more distant shores, among 
the blacks on the River Senegal or with the pep- 
per merchants in Malaguette or down along the 
Gold Coast of Benin. He is even said to have 
visited the islands of the torrid zone, and to have 
approached the equator among the hills and for- 
ests of St. Thomas. He had an early opportu- 
nity of seeing the Canary Islands, for by a treaty 



2o8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

with Spain made about two years after his return 
to Porto Santo the Portuguese were allowed to 
trade freely with the colonists, who were already 
successful in sugar making, though in agriculture 
they had terrible difficulties in contending with 
the rabbits and crows. The Portuguese took in 
their supplies at Grand Canary, and the busy fac- 
tories of Ferro and Lanzarote ; and fresh venison 
for the sailors was occasionally procured at Gom- 
era, where a wild population was ruled by "the 
huntress Bovadilla." Teneriffe and some others 
of the "pagan islands" were still under the rule of 
the Guanches. 

We cannot be sure whether he visited the 
Cape Verde Islands at this time, though he made 
one or two allusions to their position in discuss- 
ing the Carthaginian voyages. He described 
them very carefully in his journal for 1498, and it 
seems likely from the phrases employed that he 
had not been there before. His way of playing 
on the local names is what one would only ex- 
pect from a stranger. "Cape Verde," he says, 
"is a fine name for a desert where nothing green 
could be found," as if he had forgotten that they 
were only named after the green cape on the 
African coast a hundred leagues away. When he 



TH& career of COLUMBUS. 200 

came to Bona Vista, where lepers were sent to be 
cured by catching and eating turtles, "for so 
wretchedly," he adds, "do these sick men live, 
without any other employment or sustenance," 
he plays on the meaning of the word again. 
"Very far from the truth is this name, for it 
betokens a lovely view, whereas it is a dull and 
wretched place, dry and barren, with never a tree 
or a spring." He was evidently not familiar with 
Santiago, the principal settlement in the islands, 
for we may suppose that his description would 
have been more discriminating if he had been 
there on several occasions. The weather being 
bad when he arrived in 1498, he complains of 
"never seeing the sky or the stars," and says that 
"there was always a thick hot fog, so that three- 
fourths of the inhabitants were ill." On arriving 
a day or two afterward at the burning island of 
Fogo, he notes, as if the sight were quite strange 
to him, that "it looks from a distance like a great 
church with a steeple at the east end, and from 
the vast high rock there usually breaks out fire 
before the east winds blow, and this may be seen 
at Teneriffe, and at Volcano and Mount Etna." 
Now when he spoke to the sailors on the First 
Voyage about the eruption of Teneriffe, he made 



210 TBE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

no mention of this burning island, though he 
would almost certainly have added it to his list if 
he had been in these parts before. 

We hear much more of what he learned during 
his visits to the Azores. When he was at Flores 
the settlers told him that they had seen two 
drowned men in the sea with very broad faces, 
and "differing in aspect from Christians" ; but 
there was nothing, of course, to show that these 
were not the bodies of Canarians from Ferro or 
Gomera. Again at Cape Verga he was told that 
they had seen boats drifting, as if they had been 
lost in a storm when crossing about between 
some of the distant islands ; and they said that 
these boats were just like the African "dugout" 
canoes, which were called "almadias" by the 
Moors. All these circumstances seemed to fit 
in with the classical tradition, so often repeated 
in various forms, that certain Indians had been 
driven ashore in Germany, and had been sent as 
a gift to Metellus, the pro-consul in Gaul. The 
wanderings of these "Indians" had soon been 
found to have nothing to do with the countries 
beyond the Atlantic, though the story received a 
new importance when the English began to make 
plans for discovering the Northeast Passage. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 2ii 

Columbus seems to have approved the infepences 
drawn from finding the boats and corpses; but 
he attached more importance to the statement 
that large pine trees of an unknown species had 
been cast on shore in Correa's territory and in 
the neighboring island of Fayal ; and his reason- 
ing was shown to be correct when he came upon 
extensive pine forests on the coasts of Cuba and 
Hispaniola. Antonio Leme, the son of a Flem- 
ing settled in Madeira, told the admiral besides, 
that he had sailed out for a long way in his own 
ship, and had seen three unknown islands; and 
several captains of ships trading with the Azores 
confirmed the story, repeating the talk of the 
people at Gomera about seeing these countries 
every year; "and this they looked upon as most 
certain, and many persons of reputation swore 
that it was true." Columbus paid little atten- 
tion to them, because he found that they had 
certainly not been one hundred leagues from land. 
They had been deceived, he thought, by meeting 
with isolated rocks, or masses of weed, or perhaps 
they had seen the burning mountains of the 
northern ocean, or those flitting islands in the 
south, which, according to the poet Juventius, 
"skimmed along upon the surface of the sea." 



^12 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

But whether their eyes had been cheated by sun- 
set clouds, or the mirage of the Fata Morgana, or 
whether these were only the echoes of old tradi- 
tions about the land that could never be ap- 
proached, the admiral would have none of them. 
"If Antonio Leme saw anything, it must have 
been one of St. Brandan's isles, where as all the 
world knows many wonderful things are seen." 

We find a considerable number of references to 
his various African voyages. There was at one 
time some uncertainty as to the date when his 
visits to the West Coast began, and Don Ferdi- 
nand himself was not quite sure whether his 
father went there while his wife was alive, al- 
though (to use his own phrase) "the reason of the 
case seems to require it." But there can in real- 
ity be little doubt about the matter. Donna Phi- 
lippa did not die much before the end of 1484, 
nearly two years after the admiral came home 
from the building of Fort St. George ; and it is 
known that he never had any opportunity of vis- 
iting the African coast again. 

The admiral often referred in his letters and 
journals to his experiences in Senegambia and 
Guinea, more especially when he was describing 
the customs of the natives and the aspects of 



The career of columbus. ^tj 

nature in the new countries which he had found 
beyond the Atlantic. In Cuba, for instance, 
when he gave orders to capture some of the In- 
dians, he speaks in his journal of the detention 
of five young men and of the seizure of seven 
women and three children in a house near the 
shore. "I intend^" he writes, "to take them with 
us, in the hope that my Indians will behave all 
the better in Spain if their countrywomen are 
with them ; but it has very often happened that 
on taking men home from Guinea to teach them 
Portuguese, when they were brought back and 
one expected to get some advantage in their 
country in return for our favors and gifts, they 
ran away at once as soon as they touched land 
and were never seen again." Some of them, he 
added, did not act in this fashion, but this was 
because they had their wives on board ; "and so 
these Indians, if the women are with them, will 
do what they are told, and the women can teach 
their language to our wives in Spain." In a later 
entry he adds : "This evening the husband of 
one of the women has arrived and asks leave to 
go with the rest. They seem to be related 
to each other, and now they are all consoled." 
In talking of the West Indian dialects he 



5i4 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

noticed that the people of the different islands 
all seemed to understand each other, which was 
natural enough, because they were always cross- 
ing and recrossing in their canoes, "It is not 
like Guinea," he says, "where there are a thou- 
sand languages, and each of them is only under- 
stood by the .people of a particular neighbor- 
hood." He seems, however, to have spoken a 
little too generally about this uniformity of 
speech, even as regards the single island of His- 
paniola. When the Spaniards were building 
their fort in a region called Maroris, Columbus 
sent the anchorite Romano Pane to do mission 
work there, and desired him to learn the lan- 
guage. But on going further up the country it 
was found that the people of Maroris had a dia- 
lect peculiar to themselves. The missionary was 
therefore told to reside in the territory of the 
chieftain Guarionex, whose language was every- 
where understood. "Oh, my lord," said the 
anchorite, as he afterward told the story, "why 
will you have me go to live with Guarionex when 
I know no language but this of Maroris?" He 
begged for an interpreter who could use both 
tongues, and Columbus said that he might take 
anyone that he might choose, and he chose one 



The career of columbus. 215 

John Matthews, "the best of the Indians," who 
was the first native baptized in Hispaniola. An- 
other difference of language was observed near 
the Gulf of Samana, where the admiral's interpre- 
ters could hardly make themselves understood in 
talking with the Ciguayo warriors. 

In his descriptions of the physical appearance 
of the natives, Columbus several times referred to 
the black skins and woolly hair of the African 
negro. The West Indians in his opinion were 
not unlike the natives of the Canaries, being sal- 
low or of a bright olive complexion, very tall, 
and with high compressed foreheads; and they 
had coarse black hair cut short about their ears 
in some places, after the fashion of the Spanish 
soldiers ; they elsewhere wore it loose, or twisted 
in a network of parrots' feathers, "and their long 
locks were hanging down as the women wear 
theirs in Spain." "They are not black skinned 
like the men in Guinea," says Columbus, "and 
their hair is long ; but it does not grow like that 
where the rays of the sun are fierce." 

When he wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella 
about the excellence of the West Indian harbors, 
he declared that he had never seen anything like 
them for size, though he had been in all parts of 



2i6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Guinea. The term, as he used it, takes in the 
western shores of Africa from the Senegal to 
Cape Coast Castle, including the Grain Coast of 
Malaguette, the Ivory Coast, and the Gold Coast 
near Ashantee, to which the name of Guinea was 
afterward exclusively applied. 

He recognized in the New World many of the 
natural products which he had met with in 
Africa, such as palm trees of various kinds, the 
mangroves in the swamps, the large pearl oysters, 
and the oceanic birds whose habits he had ob- 
served in the tropical seas. When he saw the 
natives planting the yams, out of which they got 
meal for their chestnut-flavored cakes, the ad- 
miral said that he had seen the same roots grow- 
ing in Guinea, and described the proper method 
of setting the tendrils ; but he added that he had 
never seen any so large as those in the West 
Indies, where they sometimes grew to the size of 
a man's leg. 

In the account of his first expedition there is 
an anecdote of a visit to Malaguette, where the 
Portuguese got the aromatic pepper called Grains 
of Paradise. Before the Indian pepper came into 
common use this spice was very highly prized, 
and the merchants made frequent voyages to 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 217 

obtain it from the desolate and dangerous coast 
between Mesurado and Cape Palmas, on that 
part of the continent where the curve of its 
shoulder bends eastward. Columbus considered 
that the cayenne pepper and red and green cap- 
sicums of Hispaniola were worth far more, either 
than the spice from the Indian pepper vine or 
the fragrant grains of Malaguette. One day he 
was exploring by the Rio d'Oro in the same 
island, where he had found gold and very lus- 
trous ore, and when he came home he said that 
he had seen three mermaids, lifting themselves 
high out of the water; "but they were not so 
like fair ladies," he said, "as some people might 
suppose," and he told the sailors that he had 
seen others like them in Guinea, when he was off 
the coast of Malaguette. There was an officer at 
the Spanish court in his time who declared that 
he had seen a merman, with a bluish skin and 
bristly beard and hands like fishes' fins, and that 
it had been brought over from Morocco, pre- 
served in a cask of honey ; and two great schol- 
ars of the next generation, George of Trebizond 
and Theodore Gaza, averred that they had seen 
similar "tritons" in the Mediterranean. These 
may have been specimens of the sea wolf or 



2l8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

monk seal, well known to the Portuguese; but 
the animals seen by Columbus were evidently 
manatees, which are fond of haunting the shores 
near a river's mouth ; the sailors call them "sea 
cows" and say that when they lift their heads 
and breasts they have a very human appearance. 
Columbus made his last voyage to Guinea soon 
after "John the Perfect" had come to the throne 
of Portugal. The factory at Saama, where the 
ivory and gold dust was collected, was in a very 
unprotected condition, and information had been 
received about an impending invasion. The 
Duke of Medina Sidonia was lord of a maritime 
province ; and it was said that he was gathering a 
fleet for a raid upon Guinea. Other ships were 
being fitted out in England with the same object, 
and it was suspected that Edward the Fourth 
was secretly encouraging the adventure. The 
duke, as Columbus afterward discovered, was 
never of a stable mind, so that his project was 
soon abandoned; and it was not difficult to per- 
suade the English king to prohibit his subjects 
from trading within the conquests of Portugal. 
King John determined to protect himself by 
erecting a permanent fortress. There is still a 
forlorn and broken castle at Elmina in the Dutch 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 219 

colony, a few miles from our Cape Coast settle- 
ment ; and this is all that remains of the fort of 
St. George of the Goldmine. The king was 
helped in his plans by a fortunate discovery. 
Martin Behaim succeeded in the year 148 1 in im- 
proving the astrolabe into a rude but useful sex- 
tant ; and it now became easy to ascertain the 
latitude, and the course of a ship far from land, 
by taking the altitude of the sun. The Portu- 
guese fleet started on the i ith of December in that 
same year. It consisted of ten caravels, and two 
ships of burden laden with stone, bricks, and tim- 
ber work, all ready for immediate use. Colum- 
bus was in command of one of the caravels. 
Pedro Noronhas, hjs wife's uncle, was one of the 
king's most trusted ministers, and Columbus 
may have gained some advantage from the fam- 
ily connection. We know that he made the voy- 
age, because the king once reminded him of his 
duty as a sea captain in the Portuguese service, 
and because Columbus himself stated more than 
once that he had been at Fort St. George ; but 
he had, in fact, no opportunity of going there, 
except on this occasion. 

The fleet was under the command of an ad- 
miral named Azumbaj.a. He put in first at a 



220 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

harbor near Cape Verde, where he had business 
with one of the negro kings, being commissioned 
to present him with certain horses and hawks, 
and to obtain his assent to a treaty. After leav- 
ing this country, they sailed on round the shoul- 
der of Africa, along the Ivory Coast, and on the 
19th of January, 1482, arrived at the hilly shore 
beyond the Cape of the Three Points, where it 
was intended to build the castle. In the bay 
they found a Portuguese merchantman, and the 
captain, who could speak the native language, 
was at once engaged as interpreter. 

The presents for Caramansa, as the king of 
that country was called, were sent on shore at 
once, and an appointment was made for a state 
reception on the following morning. The Portu- 
guese writers are fond of describing the scene. 
Azumbaja walked first in scarlet and brocade; 
and his captains followed in splendid cloaks and 
tunics, wearing their golden collars, and taking 
care to hide their cuirasses with abundance of 
silks and ribbons. Columbus, as we know, was 
not averse from a little display ; and one may be 
sure that he wore his fine red coat and a necklet 
of amber or Indian stones. The first ceremony 
consisted in unfurling the banner of Portugal, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 221 

which was displayed from the top of a tall tree 
upon the hillside. Under the tree an altar was 
consecrated by the priest, and a mass was cele- 
brated for the repose of the soul of Prince 
Henry. Mr. Major, in his work on the Prince's 
life, has quoted a striking description of the sub- 
sequent meeting with Caramansa, Surrounded 
by his guards, armed with lances and assegais, 
and scantily clothed with monkey fur and strips 
of palm leaf, the black king sat in state; "his 
arms and legs were adorned with bracelets and 
rings of gold, and round his neck was a collar 
with small bells, and some sprigs of gold were 
twisted into his beard, so that the curls were 
straightened by the weight." The treaty was 
soon concluded, and the fortress was built within 
twenty days after the landing. Azumbaja re- 
mained in charge of the garrison, and the cara- 
vels were sent home with rich cargoes of gold 
and ivory. The merchant vessels, however, were 
broken up according to the king's orders, so that 
a report might be spread of their destruction in 
the whirlpools of the Ethiopian Sea. The king's 
plan was to make it appear that the navigation 
was only safe for the caravels of the royal navy. 
It happened one day when his courtiers were dis- 



22 2 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

cussing the matter that a commander of great 
experience, who did not know of this scheme, 
offered to make the " Ethiopian voyage" himself, 
in any kind of vessel. The king broke in 
angrily, and said that the attempt had often been 
made before, and had always failed. "The man 
must be a rascal," he said, "and it is only worth- 
less loons like this who boast that they can do 
everything, though they do little enough when 
the time comes." The Portuguese historians tell 
us another story to show how fiercely the king 
defended his secret. A merchant captain and 
two sailors, who had often been to La Mina, got 
across the borders of Portugal into Castile, and 
seemed likely to reveal to the Spaniards the in- 
formation which every government in Europe 
was eager to acquire. King John sent certain 
messengers after them, to catch them and to 
bring them back; but the pursuers killed two of 
them, because it was difficult to kidnap so many 
at once, and brought home only one of the de- 
serters. The king made an example of the 
prisoner by sawing him into four pieces ; and he 
hoped that this would show that in no part of 
the world would his enemies be safe from his 
yengeance. When Columbus escaped into Ca?- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 223 

tile he also was in some danger of being kid- 
napped or murdered ; but when the Portuguese 
king wished him to return to Lisbon he was 
offered a safe conduct and an indemnity against 
a criminal prosecution. Nevertheless, again and 
again the dangerous secret of St. George's Fort 
was likely to prove his ruin, and as often as he 
came near the Portuguese dominions he walked 
in peril of his life. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

" A brighter Hellas rears her mountains 

From waves serener far, 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning star : 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 
A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Fraught with a later prize : 
Another Orpheus sings again, 

And loves and weeps and dies." 

Soon after his return from Guinea Columbus 
began to press his schemes upon the King of 
Portugal, who was willing at first to help him ; 
but when his proposals were referred to the 
Council it was found that they involved a larger 
question, and the real debate seems to have 
turned upon the suggestion that Portugal should 
abandon the explorations of Africa in favor of a 
vague search for the lands described by Marco 
Polo. It was inevitable that the Council should 
refuse to forsake the glorious policy of Prince 
Henry. The king adopted their decision. He 

endeavored, indeed, to gain a somewhat ungener- 

224 



The career of Columbus. 225 

ous advantage by sending out three caravels from 
the Cape Verde Islands upon the route which 
Columbus had laid down ; but the ships returned 
with the report that no land could be seen after 
a voyage of several days to the westward. 

About the end of 1484 Columbus escaped into 
Spain. There is much obscurity about his sub- 
sequent journey. It seems probable that he 
made for Huelva, the home of his sister-in-law, 
Donna Muliar; and the better opinion seems to 
be that it was on this occasion that he first vis- 
ited the monastery of La Rabida. We hear of a 
visit to Genoa; and there are traditions of his 
having propounded his plans to the Signoria of 
his native city, and afterward to the Government 
of Venice. It is certain that he returned to 
Spain before the end of 1485, since his journal 
for 1493 distinctly states that on the next 20th 
of January he would have been exactly seven 
years in the service of the Catholic kings. 

When he first began to attend the Court at 
Cordova he formed an attachment for Donna 
Beatrix Enriquez, a lady of good family, con- 
nected with the great house of Arana. She was 
the mother of his son Ferdinand, who is known 
to have been born in 1488. But though Don 



^26 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Ferdinand was scrupulously treated on the same 
footing as Don Diego, the elder son, it remains 
very doubtful whether his parents were lawfully 
married. It is possible that some legal impedi- 
ment or flaw may have been discovered which 
rendered the union invalid ; and in any event it 
is certain that Columbus was separated from 
Donna Beatrix after his return from the discov- 
ery of the West Indies, although up to that time 
she had been in charge of both his sons at Cor- 
dova. 

In 1489 Columbus served in the campaign in 
which the city of Baza was captured from the 
Moors. During the next two years he lived at 
Seville, near the bridge upon the Guadalquivir, 
where he kept a small bookseller's shop, and sold 
charts and maps and a little treatise which he 
had written upon the practice of navigation. 

About this time a conference of learned men 
was summoned to Salamanca to consider the 
truth of his theories and the actual value of his 
proposals; and in the winter of 1491 they re- 
ported against the whole scheme. This brought 
the matter to a point. The refusal of the Dukes 
of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi to undertake 
so vast a task, too heavy as it seemed for the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 227 

sovereigns of Arragon and Castile, fixed Colum- 
bus in his resolution to abandon Spain forever. 
It was natural that Queen Isabella should at that 
moment be regretting her decision ; and a mes- 
sage from the Prior of La Rabida, to whom Colum- 
bus had confided his plans, determined her at all 
hazards to accept the offers that she had refused. 
Columbus rode back to the camp at Santa F6, 
where a strong town had been built on land 
taken from the Moors in face of their beleaguered 
palaces. He was promised all the high offices 
and allowances which had seemed before too 
great for a subject to hold. It was arranged that 
he should have one-eighth of the profits in con- 
sideration of finding a like share of the expense ; 
the town of Palos was ordered to find the ships 
and crews. After many delays and much resist- 
ance Columbus and his friends, tAvo rich ship- 
builders called Martin and Vincente Pinzon, 
procured and equipped the fleet of three ships by 
which the New World was found. The Santa 
Maria, a fine caravel, sailed with Columbus him- 
self on board; the Pinta, the swiftest of the 
three, was under the elder Pinzon ; and the 
Nina, a small but roomy vessel, which after- 
ward became the admiral's own favorite, started 



2 28 l^HE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

on this occasion under Vincente Pinzon's com- 
mand. 

Columbus never failed to remind the Catholic 
kings that his whole undertaking was intended 
to be but an episode in a vast crusade. In 
Europe they had closed the war against the infi- 
dels when their banners were displayed on the 
Alhambra and the Moorish king had kissed 
hands at the gate of Granada. The time had 
now come to carry those banners into the East 
and to bring light and hope to the countless 
nations of Cathay. The Great Khan and his 
ancestors had pleaded at Rome for instruction; 
but the nations were sunk in idolatry and went 
after the "sects of perdition." "Your High- 
nesses," he wrote, "as enemies of the following 
of Mohammed have thought fit to send me to see 
those princes and peoples, and to judge of their 
present state and the proper way to convert 
them." He was firmly convinced that he was a 
divinely appointed messenger to find and reveal 
"new heavens and a new earth," and all the treas- 
ures of the islands that were awaiting the ships 
of Tarshish ; and he was assured that within an 
appointed term he Avould see again the wealth 
of Ophir and Sheba, and bring gold by 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 229 

the thousands of quintals to aid in a holy 
war. 

The journals of his first voyage are full of the 
indications of this belief. On the night of 
August 24, 1492, when sailing between the 
Grand Canary and Gomera, he saw the first of 
the signs and wonders which marked the course 
of his enterprise. He was passing close under 
Teneriffe, a volcano that had slept for centuries, 
when the fire suddenly "gushed out" from a 
ridge below the cone of the Peak, and they 
passed back under a flaring sky to the port where 
he had intended to procure a new caravel in 
place of the Pinta. But now he would have no 
delay ; and when he learned that the ship which 
he meant to impress had sailed off with the Lady 
of Gomera he took it lightly, and "made the best 
of what had happened." He affirmed that since 
it had pleased Heaven that he should not find 
the caravel, it was, perhaps, because he would 
have lost much time about its seizure and the 
changing of cargoes. There must be no further 
hindrance ; and he determined to stay where he 
was, and to shift with making a new rudder for 
the Pinta and cutting down the 33^1= ^^ the Nina 
to a proper shape. The admiral left Gomera Oi. 



230 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the 6th of September, and this, says Don Ferdi- 
nand, may be accounted the first setting out upon 
the voyage in the ocean. On the 9th they lost 
sight of Ferro, "the furthest Christian land," and 
there were many tears and groans from those who 
believed that they would never see home again. 

For a few days they had to make head against 
a contrary current; but on the night of the 13th 
strange signs began to be seen. They had 
reached a "magnetic line of no deviation," a hun- 
dred leagues west of the Azores, and there was 
at once "a great change in the sky and the stars, 
the air, and the waters of the sea." The com- 
pass needle had been pointing northeast and sud- 
denly turned a whole quarter of the card to the 
northwest, and remained nearly at that point 
through the night. The admiral was still more 
amazed soon afterward to see the needle pointing 
northeast at night and straight for the pole star 
at dawn. The stone was not true to the star, or 
the star, as the admiral said, was wheeling in a 
broad circle round the pole. The pilots and 
crews were alarmed, being in such a strange 
region and so far from land, and were hardly 
pacified by the admiral's theories on a matter 
beyond the scope of his science. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 231 

At this point they were within the drift of the 
great "Fucus bank"; it seemed as if they had 
returned to the weedy shores of Spain, for all the 
sea was covered with the orange Sargasso plant, 
shaped like pine branches and covered with ber- 
ries like those on the mastic tree. "It was so 
thick," said the admiral, "that I thought it was a 
reef, and that the ships must run aground, where- 
as until I reached this line I saw not a single 
branch." There were also bright green leaves 
floating a few feet down, which looked like rock 
weeds from some neighboring island, but Colum- 
bus said that by his calculation the mainland 
must be a long way off. "I also observed," he 
added, "that at this point the sea was very 
smooth, and that though the wind was rough, 
the ships did not roll at all." They were borne 
along on an oceanic current "as calm as the river 
at Seville," but the sailors were alarmed at seeing 
nothing but the sky and the water, and looked 
anxiously for tokens of land. On the evening of 
the 15th they saw a meteor fall "like a marvelous 
branch of fire," and within a few hours they 
came into a region of balmy air and blue skies, 
"like Andalusia in April, if only the nightingales 
were singing." 



^32 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

"There are signs coming out of the west," 
Columbus writes in his journal, "where, I hope, 
He in whose hands is victory will bring us 
soon to land." A swimming crab was caught in 
a bunch of weed, and the crew of the Nina 
speared a spotted tunny out of a shoal playing 
round the ship. Some of the others caught a 
tern, of the kind that haunts the mouths of 
rivers. A white tropic bird was seen wheeling 
aloft, and a day or two afterward there were 
"boobies," looking like pelicans, flying straight 
out over the water, as if they were going out to 
fish or were making for home. When there were 
two or three of them together it was a sure sign 
that they were in their proper ground and not 
blown out to sea by accident ; and the sailors 
who had been in Africa said that none of these 
large birds slept on the water, or were found 
more than one hundred miles from land. On the 
20th they caught a tern, and two or three song 
birds came to the ship about dawn, and flew 
away at sunrise. It seemed as if they must have 
islands to the north and south of their course, 
but the admiral was firm in pushing on toward the 
Indies. "The weather is fine and, if it please 
God, we shall see it all on our way home." 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 233 

On the 2 1st they sailed again into a floating 
weed bank. A vast sea meadow seemed to 
stretch away as far as the horizon. The sea was 
held by the yellow fondage, "as when its whole 
surface is caught in the ice"; and the sailors 
caught up the notion, and talked about the freez- 
ing seas where St. Amaro will not allow a ship to 
stir forward or back. Then a fine breeze sprang 
up and blew the weed away, the sea began to run 
smooth like a river, and a whale was seen spout- 
ing and this was another sign of land. Next day 
a flock of petrels flitted about the stern of the 
admiral's ship, bringing bad weather, as sailors 
say. The wind shifted, and blew against their 
course, and this, says Columbus, was " absolutely 
necessary for me, because the crews had been in 
a great excitement at the idea that there were no 
winds here that could take a ship back to Spain." 
But the sailors still grumbled at the breeze; it 
was only a "cat's paw," or a little flicker of wind, 
and if it was too weak to raise the sea it would 
never be strong enough to carry them home." 
The water was moving in a slow stream, with 
weed hanging round ; there were little cray fishes 
creeping about its bunches and strings, and a 
booby and some white sea birds fishing, and some 



234 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

of the men saw a reed sparrow and a turtle dove. 
Suddenly the sea rose, though there was no 
longer a breath of wind, and rolled so high that 
they were all amazed. "This great sea," the 
admiral repeated, "was quite necessary for me ; 
but such a thing has never happened before, ex- 
cept when Pharaoh went forth after Moses, who 
delivered the Hebrews from bondage." 

Next day, said the journal, they spied another 
booby flying out, and several small birds coming 
from the west, and tunny fishes, "whereof the 
men of the Pinta and Nina stuck some with 
harping irons, because they would not bite at the 
hook." Columbus now signaled to Pinzon to 
bring the Pinta alongside, and to give back the 
copy of Toscanelli's map, which he had borrowed 
three days before. Pinzon came up accordingly, 
and said that the map showed islands there- 
abouts. The admiral replied that he thought the 
map was right, but that the current had been 
thrusting them away from the islands, and they 
had possibly not gone so far as the pilots made 
out ; and when Pinzon had put the map into a 
case and heaved it to the admiral on a line, 
Columbus and the pilot Juan de la Cosa, and 
some of the 3a,ilors riear them, began to stoop 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 235 

over the map and point their fingers to the 
islands. Pinzon was watching the sunset from 
the poop of his caravel, when all in a moment he 
leaped in the air and shouted, "Good news, good 
cheer, Lord Admiral ! Land ho ! and good luck 
to the news!" His hand pointed to a dark 
smear on the sky line which loomed like distant 
land. Columbus fell on his knees in prayer. 
Pinzon led off a Gloria in Excelsis which was 
taken up by both the crews, and they could see 
the men of the Nina climbing her masts and 
crowding out in the rigging. But by noon next 
day they knew that they had been deceived by a 
sunset cloud. 

Now came tokens of a new kind. On the 27th 
several doradoes were harpooned. Two days 
after that they saw a frigate bird chasing some 
boobies, and the sight reminded them of the 
world behind, for some of them remembered the 
same thing in the Cape Verde Islands. The 
tropic birds and boobies were gathered in little 
flocks and companies. A shoal of "emperor fish" 
passed by, very brilliantly colored, "but with a 
hard skin, and not fit to eat." But however 
much the admiral attended to these signs he stilt 
more ca,refully wa,tched the deviation of the 



236 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

needle and the movements of the stars round the 
pole, and he was confirmed in his belief that 
the load star moved in a wide circle, but the com- 
pass was always true. , 

There was heavy rain on the ist of October, and 
Juan de la Cosa came up and announced in a 
dolorous voice that they were now five hundred 
and seventy-eight leagues from Ferro. The ad- 
miral had learnt by watching the water and the 
sand glass that their run was about five hundred 
miles further than the pilot supposed ; but he 
winked, we are told, at this mistake, "that the 
men might not feel quite dejected at being so far 
from home." The sailors were now almost ripe 
for a mutiny. They muttered at their leader's 
foolish fancies ; he wanted to be a lord at their 
expense, while he was but a foreigner, hated at 
court and despised by all the wise and learned. 
Some said that the best plan would be to throw 
him overboard, and to say that he lost his foot- 
ing when he was taking an altitude. "It pleased 
Heaven," says the biographer, "to send fresh 
signs." Birds and fishes came round the ships, 
and the sea went in a smooth stream again, 
for which Columbus rendered "infinite praise." 
There was a great quantity of weed, some of it 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 237 

with green leaves and berries and some all with- 
ered and going to powder. No less than forty 
petrels were playing about the admiral's ship; 
"but, thanks be to God," he writes, "the sea is 
still running like a river," and he compares it 
more than once to the calm waters of the Guadal- 
quivir below the bridge at Seville. The flying 
fish were now beginning to be seen. A modern 
traveler says in describing them that "the first 
little fish may be mistaken for a dragon fly, and 
the next for a plover," "and their flight is almost 
exactly like that of a quail or partridge." Co- 
lumbus called them "water swallows," and said 
that they were about a span long, with little 
wings like a bat; "they fly about the height of a 
pike and for a musket-shot in length, more or less, 
and sometimes they drop into the ship." 

On the night of the 6th of October Pinzon 
brought the Pinta alongside, and proposed to 
turn toward the southwest. He may have 
thought that they were near the rich island of 
Cipango. Columbus still thought it best to 
make straight for the mainland of Cathay; but 
he consented to change their course on seeing a 
large flock of birds flying to the southwest, and 
either making for their home or beginning a winr 



238 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ter migration. The air now became as balmy as 
the garden€ round Seville in springtime. Twelve 
birds with bright plumage were singing and flut- 
tering about the mast ; there were daws and 
ducks flying to the south, and all night long they 
heard the flocks of birds whistling and crying 
overhead. The men were so sick of delay that 
none of these things would comfort them. Day 
and night they complained, and the admiral 
argued and threatened. "Be it right or wrong," 
he said, "and tokens or no tokens, they had to go 
on with the Indian voyage by order of the Catho- 
lic kings." 

Then they suddenly changed their minds. 
There were green rushes floating, and the men 
on the Nina saw a dog-rose briar covered with 
bloom, and a little stick with curious carving. 
Now they were all racing to earn the reward for 
the man who should first see land. On the even- 
ing of the nth of October, after the Salve Re- 
gina had been sung, Columbus said that he would 
add a velvet coat as a special prize of his own. 
Looking out from the poop cabin about ten 
o'clock, he thought that he saw a light moving 
up and down and vanishing sometimes, as if a 
torch were being carried about in a village. He 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 239 

called others to look at it, but they could not be 
quite sure about the matter. About tAvo o'clock 
in the morning the Pinta fired a gun. The coast 
had been seen about two leagues off by a sailor 
called Roderigo de Triana. "Being now arrived 
the ships all lay by, and it seemed a long time 
before the morning came." The New World was 
found, and the reward was afterward adjudged to 
Columbus, "because he had been the first to see 
light in the midst of the darkness." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

" A fleet of glass. 
That seemed a fleet of jewels under me, 
Sailing along before a gloomy cloud 
That not one moment ceased to thunder, passed 
In sunshine ; right across its track there lay 
Down in the water a long reef of gold. 
Or what seemed gold." 

When the dawn broke they saw that they 
were fronting "a httle island of the Lucayos," 
flat and tufted with high towering trees. They 
had reached the archipelago of the Bahamas, and 
they hoped and believed that they were in In- 
dian waters and already among the Golden Cycla- 
des. About two leagues off lay a rich-looking 
coast, with a white sandy line of beach, and here 
they determined to land and enter into posses- 
sion. When the boats were hauled ashore the 
admiral knelt and kissed the sand, and gave 
thanks with tears. The royal standard was un- 
furled, the cross was set up and the banners 
raised ; the name of San Salvador was given to 
the island, and Columbus formally assumed the 
offices of viceroy and governor. When they 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 24 1 

looked round they must have felt bewildered, 
like men in a dream. The forest stood like a 
wall round the blue curve of the bay, with its 
masses of metallic green or the soft and liquid 
color of the acanthus, silvery or golden or gleam- 
ing with blue and topaz, "ever changing," to use 
Kingsley's words, "and iridescent like a peacock's 
neck." There were strange naked people grovel- 
ing and crawling, or pointing to the armed and 
bearded Spaniards and their three ships, and then 
to the sky and the sun. After a time a crowd of 
them came round and tried to talk with the inter- 
preters. They were the warriors of the Isle of 
Guanahani, having only one woman with them. 
Some had their faces smeared with a blood-red 
stain, others were striped and checkered or plas- 
tered with a chalky white; one had his nose 
painted, another had bright rings round his eyes, 
and they all looked like "madmen or clowns." 
Their skins, where the natural color could be 
seen, were neither white nor black, but somewhat 
of an olive color, like the complexions of the 
natives in Gomera or the faces of sunburned 
laborers in Spain. They were tall and well- 
shaped, and with good features, except that their 
foreheads had been squeezed too high, "which 



242 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

made them look rather wild." Most of them 
had gray eyes, with specks of blue or brown 
about the iris. Their hands were small, with 
polished nails, and when they began to laugh and 
talk their teeth were as white as ivory. Their 
thick black hair was cropped and worn in a 
straight fringe above the eyebrows; "some few 
let it grow down about their shoulders, and held 
it back with a string, as women tie back their 
tresses." They carried bundles of darts made 
out of the stems of reeds or canes, and tipped 
with spikes of hard wood or sharks' teeth and 
thornbacks' spines. Before the Spaniards re- 
turned to their boats the admiral distributed a 
few red caps and strings of beads among them. 
A crowd now followed them to the water's edge 
and swam out to the ships, carrying all their 
treasures to exchange for memorials of the white 
men who had sailed from a land beyond the sun. 
They had parrots and reed darts and large balls 
of cotton ; and they possessed a greater treasure 
than all the rest in the dried tobacco leaves, 
which the Spaniards did not know how to use. 
"The Indians," they said, "value these dry leaves 
as being sweet-scented and wholesome, and use 
them as a sort of incense for perfuming them- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 243 

selves." Next day the bargaining went on again, 
the Indians clustering round the ships in their dug- 
out canoes, which turned out after all to be very 
like the African "almadias," They seemed very 
poor, Columbus said, but they had plenty of 
spun cotton, and would give it by hundred- 
weights for scraps of broken pottery or a Portu- 
guese half-farthing. One or two, however, had 
little plates of gold hanging to their nose rings, 
and being asked where they got them they 
showed by signs that it was "toward the south," 
and told of a king there who had great pieces 
and platters of gold. On the 14th the admiral 
completed the circuit of the island. Like most 
of the Bahamas, it was girt in on almost all sides 
by coral rocks ; but the reef in one part opened 
into a harbor "which would have held all the 
navies of Christendom." On going in with the 
longboat he found several houses, and captured 
some of the natives to act as interpreters. There 
were lovelier gardens than he had ever seen 
before, with water rippling in a green shade and 
trees with fresher foliage than the cork woods of 
Castile in May. 

On setting sail again they saw a multitude of 
other islands, and the Indian guides were able to 



244 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

repeat the names of more than a hundred of 
those in sight, all flat and fertile, as they re- 
ported, and all of them thickly inhabited. The 
Indians said that in the nearest, which seemed 
much closer than it was in that clear atmosphere, 
the chiefs wore bangles and bracelets of gold. 
When the Spaniards arrived there about sunset 
they found nothing but naked Indians again, but 
Columbus landed and took possession, and gave 
it the name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion. 

A larger island stood a few leagues off toward 
the western horizon, and it was here, as the 
guides explained, that the people wore bracelets 
and bangles, and golden necklaces and earrings. 
Columbus named this country Fernandina, and 
determined to explore it thoroughly in hopes of 
finding a gold mine, but he was once more disap- 
pointed, and was told that he would find it in 
"Saometo," which he afterward called "Isabella" 
in honor of the queen. In Fernandina the peo- 
ple were somewhat more civilized, and they 
seemed to be sharper than the other Indians at a 
bargain. The women wore cotton mantillas and 
aprons. There were villages with ten or twelve 
houses together, tent-shaped, with air shafts 
standing out from the roofs. Inside were slung 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 245 

hammocks covered with cotton rugs. There 
were dogs kept for food and for hunting the rab- 
bit-hke agoutis ; but the Spaniards saw nothing 
ahve in the maize fields, except parrots and hz- 
ards and a snake found by one of the ship boys. 
Columbus took many notes about the fauna and 
flora, as the place seemed suitable for a colony. 
What struck him most was the marvelous entan- 
glement of the bush and the abundance of creep- 
ers and parasitic plants. Out of the trunk of one 
forest tree grew branches of other kinds, orchids 
and creepers, a pine growing on the bough like a 
mistletoe, "one branch like a reed and the next 
like a mastic bush," and yet there was no sign of 
grafting; and indeed the natives had no feelings 
about these astonishing sights, and apparently no 
reverence for anything ; and this might make it 
easier to convert them, since they showed no lack 
of intelligence. 

The admiral describes one of his walks in the 
forest. The verdure of the foliage reminded him 
of the gardens round Granada, but the trees 
themselves, the fruit, the grass, the very stones, 
were as different from anything in Europe as the 
day from the night. It is true that there were 
mastic trees and others that reminded him of the 



246' THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

woods in Castile, but one could always see the 
difference. The sea round Fernandina was full 
of life. There were whales spouting in the bay. 
The natives caught all sorts of sea birds, and 
land crabs, and fishes of many strange kinds. 
These fish were of the strangest shapes and 
painted in most fantastic colors — pink and silver, 
or scarlet, or striped like a zebra. There were 
"yellow fins" and "hog fish," and the parrot fish, 
and "sea cocks" of a silvery red, "shaped just 
like Chanticleer" and with all his brilliant color- 
ing. "There is no one, I am sure," said the ad- 
miral, "who would not be amazed and delighted 
at seeing them." 

After a while the flotilla made for Saometo. 
This was the finest place which they had yet 
seen, with a bold cape and swelling hills covered 
with groups of enormous trees. "It is all so 
fine," wrote the admiral, "that I do not know 
where to begin. My eyes are never tired of 
looking at the green foliage, so different in its 
colors from ours at home. I expect that trees 
and plants grow here which are of a high price in 
Spain for dyes, and medicine, and spice; but I 
do not know them, and this gives me great con- 
cern. When I arrived at this beautiful cape the 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 247 

flowers and trees on shore sent out to us such a 
sweet and soft perfume that it was the most 
agreeable of all offerings to our senses. To- 
morrow, before leaving these parts, I shall go 
ashore to see what there is on the cape. The 
village is further off in the interior. It is there, 
according to my Indians, that the king lives who 
carries so much gold about him. I must go early 
enough to find his palace to-morrow ; and I shall 
speak to this king, who, according to the guides, 
holds all these islands under his sway, and wears 
rich robes, and covers himself over with gold." 
He adds that he does not much believe in the 
story. The cape seemed to form an islet by 
itself, and there might be still another to be 
passed before they could approach the royal 
domain. "When I have found the spots where 
the gold and spices abound, I shall stay there 
until I have collected the greatest possible store, 
and that is why I am going round only to look 
for these productions." 

On October 21 he walked about the island 
with his two captains. "How beautiful it is!" he 
cried, "and how full of great green forests, and 
lakes set round with groves I The grass at this 
moment is like the herbage of Andalusia in the 



24^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

springtime." There was a concert of singing 
birds, "so sweet that he could hardly depart." 
Great flocks of parrots darkened the sun, and the 
air was full of the odors of fruit and flowers. "I 
was in despair," he says, "at not knowing the 
different kinds, because I am quite sure that they 
are all very valuable, and I am bringing home 
specimens of every kind, and even of the grasses." 
As he walked by the lake side he saw an iguana 
run down into the water, and they killed the 
great lizard, or "serpent" as they called it, and 
brought back the skin to Spain. It was just 
there that he thought he recognized the lign 
aloes or "eagle wood," which was used in making 
frankincense. It was probably one of the 
euphorbias, which always burn with a pleasant 
smell. "They tell me it is very precious," he 
writes, "and I shall take down ten quintals of it 
to my ship to-morrow." Then they found a vil- 
lage with empty houses, and thought that the 
people must have carried off their clothes and 
property into the hills. One or two Indians 
came round, and brought a little water in their 
poor calabashes. "I wish," said Columbus, "I 
could see this king, and try to get the gold that 
he wears, and then start off to the other great 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 249 

island, which must be Cipango, if the guides are 
right." They called it Cuba, and talked of its 
broad havens and the multitude of its sailors. 
There was another great country near it called 
Bohio, which turned out afterward to be His- 
paniola. The admiral determined to visit all the 
islands, and to act according to the quantity of 
wealth which they might find. "At present," he 
said, "I am resolved to go to the Terra Firma 
and the City of Quinsay, to remit your High- 
ness's letters to the Grand Khan, to ask for an 
answer, and to return home as soon as I become 
its bearer." 

All night and all the next day he was waiting, 
wondering why the king or some noble person 
did not arrive with gold and treasures. In the 
morning came the waking from his dream. All 
round came groveling and staring the naked men 
with blood-red faces, or spotted with black and 
yellow, or plastered with chalky white, holding 
out their reed darts and balls of cotton in ex- 
change for potsherds and bits of glass. Some 
had morsels of gold on their noses, which they 
gave away for almost nothing; and the pieces, 
indeed, were so small that they were in fact 
worth nothing at all, The same things began to 



250 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

happen over again. The Indians talked about 
the ships saiHng down from Heaven. Martin 
Pinzon killed another serpent five palms long in 
the same lake, and the sailors continued to 
cut down all the lign aloes that could be 
found. 

"I see," said Columbus, "that there are no 
gold mines here, and I shall not stay to go round 
the island, or to find the village where I had in- 
tended to see this king or chieftain." "I must 
go on to some country," he added, "where I can 
manage some great commercial operation ; this 
island seems to be fertile in spices, but I do not 
know them. I am truly grieved at this, for I see 
a thousand kinds of trees with different fruits, 
and as green as our woods in June ; and it is just 
the same with the herbs and flowers, and yet we 
have recognized nothing except the lign aloes, of 
which I have ordered a great quantity to be 
loaded to-day." 

Next day he was more cheerful. They were 
sailing for Cuba with a fine breeze, and there he 
said that, according to the Indian guides, the 
natives had a very extensive trade, and gold and 
spice, and great ships and crowds of merchants. 
"I think it must be Cipango, which Hes some- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 251 

where about here, according to my maps and 
globes." There were pearls too in great plenty, 
said the Indians, and this made Columbus sure 
that he was right. When they came near Cuba 
the pink cliffs and blue mountains in the distance 
reminded him of Sicily. The foliage and the 
face of the earth still seemed like the gardens of 
Granada. This island, he says, is the fairest ever 
seen by the eyes of man. They were anchored 
at the mouth of a broad river. "I never saw 
anything so magnificent," he repeats. There 
were palms unlike any that he had seen in Spain 
or Africa, and giant trees covered with strange 
fruits and flowers, and there were chirping spar- 
rows and birds singing so sweetly that he often 
longed to hear them again. The Indians said 
that they were near the gold mines and pearl 
beds, and Columbus thought that he saw a place 
suited to the growth of pearls and several of the 
right kind of shells upon the shore. They all 
agreed that this must be the place where the 
Great Khan's navy came, and, if that were so, 
they would be at a distance of about ten days' 
sail from the Continent. 

Passing by one broad river, they reached an- 
other, still finer than the first, and they named it 



252 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the Rio de Mares. There were large tent-shaped 
houses, thatched with palm-leaves, set here and 
there about the banks. The inhabitants all fled 
away on seeing the strangers. On landing, the 
Spaniards found that the houses were very neat 
and clean, and there were masks of faces and 
carved figures of women set up inside. There 
were dogs that could not bark, and tame parrots ; 
they saw nets of a marvelously fine texture, and 
hooks and other implements of fishery. "These 
must be the fishermen," they said, "who carry up 
the fish into the rich interior of this lovely land." 
The admiral thought that there were flocks and 
herds, for he saw bones in one of the houses that 
seemed to be those of a cow, though, in fact, 
they must have belonged to a sea cow, or mana- 
tee. All night long they heard the song birds, 
the sparrows, and the grasshoppers, and everyone 
rejoiced. The sea, Columbus declared, was 
always calm, "as smooth as the Guadalquivir," 
and such waters must be of a nature to favor the 
growth of pearls. He looked about, and found 
twisted conch shells on the sands of a kind that 
was new to him, and they tried the meat, but 
found that it had little flavor; and when they 
left the flat coast they passed some very high 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 253 

rocks, of which one was hke a fine Moorish 
mosque and another like the Lover's Leap. 

After passing a cape covered with a thick palm 
grove, they arrived at a bay with a poor anchor- 
age, and they determined, as the weather was 
threatening, to return to Rio de Mares in order 
to careen the ships ; and while they were en- 
gaged on this work they noticed that all the 
wood used for the fire was of the lentisk kind, 
and was full of the precious gum mastic. The 
admiral knew that one of his sailors had carried 
letters to a native king in Guinea, and this made 
him think of sending an embassy to find the ruler 
of this new country, and to give him greeting 
from their Catholic Majesties. The painted sav- 
ages were beginning to come round again. Co- 
lumbus was still in hopes that he was within a 
hundred leagues of Quinsay, and he now thought 
it possible that all these naked Indians were at 
war with the Grand Khan. Some of the natives 
came out to his ship with cotton and hammock 
nets for barter. The admiral had sent off two of 
his men to find out what the people of the inte- 
rior were like. One was Rodrigo de Jerez from 
Ayamonte; the other was a converted Jew 
named Luis de Torres, who knew the Hebrew 



254 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

and Chaldean tongues, and could speak a little 
Arabic. They were Avell supplied with guides 
and provisions and samples of spice for compari- 
son, with a string of beads to exchange for food 
if they ran short ; and they carried with them a 
letter of recommendation from Ferdinand and 
Isabella, and a present for the native king- 
While they were away the admiral made note& 
on the productions of the country, which seemed 
very pleasant and fertile. There were fields fulli 
of the yuccas and manioc plants, from whicb 
they got the meal for making cassava cakes; and^- 
in others there were crops of maize and yams or 
"sweet potatoes." They did not cultivate the 
cotton plant, but got their supplies from the 
great ceiba trees that stood like sentinels at the 
mouths of the deep ravines. Columbus himself 
saw some of these trees with ripe pods and flow- 
ers upon them at the same time, as if they bore 
cotton all the year round. Martin Pinzon came 
in with a story of having seen an Indian carrying 
clusters of red nuts and three bundles of sugar 
cane, and he produced two pieces of the cane» 
added that he had talked to an old man, who 
said that jthp gold and pearls were at a place 
called BohiOj where the natiyes yyerg covered 



THE CAREER OE COLUMBUS. 255 

with jewels. He understood them to say that 
there was much shipping and merchandise there, 
and they had spoken about one-eyed mon- 
sters, and men with dogs' faces, who were can- 
nibals. 

These rumors determined Columbus to sail to 
the new country if the embassy should not come 
back with good news ; and he went on meanwhile 
with the collection of eagle wood and mastic. 
On the 6th of November the messengers re- 
turned without much information of importance. 
They had come upon a village with fifty large 
houses, or wigwams, and about a thousand inhab- 
itants. These houses were of the usual conical 
shape, and were made of boards thatched with 
palmetto. The Indians had lodged their visitors 
in one of the largest of these lodges, and had 
made them sit on chairs carved like animals, with 
the tail set up for a back and the head projecting 
in front with eyes and ears of gold. There was 
no sign of sugar cane or pepper, but there were 
immense quantities of cotton, which the natives 
used for aprons and hammocks. Besides the 
crops which the admiral had already seen, they 
had a grain called maize, with grains like millet 
and as large as_hazelnuts, which tasted very well 



256 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

when ground and baked. All the men and 
women carried about fire and smoked tobacco, 
wrapping the leaves together into little rolls "hke 
the toys which the children play with at Easter," 
They lit one end and sucked the smoke in by the 
other, "making themselves drunk through their 
nostrils," and they said that it took away all 
sense of fatigue. Being asked whether they had 
any gold or pearls or spice, they made signs that 
there was great plenty toward the east in a coun- 
try which they called "Bohio." "They seem 
very simple people," said the admiral, "and not 
too black, not quite so black, in fact, as the peo- 
ple in the Canaries" ; and he noted for the 
queen's behoof how docile her new Indians were, 
and clever at remembering with exactness, so 
that there was every hope that in a little while 
the whole race would be converted to the faith. 
"As for me," he writes, "I am getting ready to 
start on Thursday for the southeast to search in 
God's name for the gold and the spices and the 
undiscovered lands." 

"Bohio" and "Babeque" were the birthplaces of 
the gold, and according to the Indians' pantomime 
one might see a crowd there going by torchlight 
to pick up nuggets on the shore, or standing at 



TtiE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 25 f 

great fires to hammer out the yellow lumps and 
beat them up into bars and ingots. 

Some days were spent in exploring Our Lady's 
Sea and the multitude of islets called the King's 
Garden. They lay hardly a musket shot apart, 
with deep channels between, and towered aloft in 
airy pinnacles out of the tangled forests of palm. 
These, he said, must be the Eastern Islands of 
the maps, that lie by thousands in the Indian 
Sea, and he considered that they held great 
wealth in spices and precious stones. There 
seemed to be an abundance of lentisks and lign 
aloes, and there was even gum mastic in the 
roots, out of which the Indians made their bread. 
The sailors were set to look for pearl shells, and 
found plenty of them ; but there were no pearls, 
because the season for their production was past. 
In one of the islands the men killed an animal 
like a badger with their swords; they saw guinea 
pigs, and found signs of some beast like a musk 
deer; and they caught a coffer fish in their net, 
which exactly resembled a swine, and was cov- 
ered all over with a hard mail, except at the eyes 
and tail. On November the 19th Columbus 
made a strong attempt to get across to Bohio, or 
Hispaniola, as he afterward named it, and he saw 



S58 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

"Babeque," or Jamaica, in the distance, but was 
driven back once more into Our Lady's Sea. 
Not far from the haven was a promontory, where 
the admiral landed and saw a stream of clear 
water falling down a mountain side with a 
mighty noise, and running up he saw in its bed a 
number of stones with stains of a color like gold, 
and at the moment of his picking up the ore, as 
he believed it to be, the sailors shouted out that 
they saw a forest of pine trees. The pines were 
tall enough to make masts for the largest ships, 
and there were oaks growing near, and other tim- 
ber trees like those of Castile, and a river for 
turning the saw mills, if it should be necessary to 
build a navy there. "The infinite number of 
green trees," said the admiral, "the birds, and 
the verdure of the plains, tempted me to stay 
there forever." He declares that he felt as if he 
were moving in a dream or a whirl of enchant- 
ment, and as though a thousand pens or tongues 
would not avail to depict the wonders around 
him. 

In a few days he was steering for Bohio, with 
the Nina as his only companion. Martin Pinzon 
had carried off the Pinta without leave, and was 
exploring on his own account. In the clear air of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 259 

k tropical region they saw the blue mountain 

ranges sixty miles away, higher as they thought 

than anything that the Old World could show, 

visible to all the islanders around, gigantic sea 

marks, 

Known to every skiff. 
As that sky-scraping Pike of TenerifTe. 

"They are all most beautiful," says Columbus, 
"and of a thousand different shapes, and they are 
covered with trees of a multitude of kinds, and 
of such great height that they seem to reach the 
sky." 

He arrived on December the 6th at a large, 
deep haven, which he named in honor of St. 
Nicholas. FThe country seemed to be rocky, and 
the hillside was covered with oaks and myrtles 
like those of Castile. In a bay further to the 
north a gray mullet leaped into the admiral's 
ship, and when they cast a net they took soles 
and fish like salmon and dories, and they saw a 
shoal of sardines, and they were all just like the 
fish of those kinds at home. A bird like the 
nightingale was singing, and many song birds of 
other kinds, with notes that recalled the April 
evenings in Spain. The fields reminded them at 
once of the fertile Vale of Cordova, and for all 



26o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

these reasons they were moved to give to the 
strange island the homelike name of Hispaniola. 

The Indians seemed to be of a higher type 
than the natives of the other islands. Their hab- 
its and customs were much the same, but they 
were better made, and of a fairer complexion. 
Two of the girls, it was noticed, were as white as 
any ladies in Spain. "They were all tractable 
and courteous; and they said that the country 
where the gold was found lay further to the east- 
ward." They brought in parrots and cassava 
bread for presents, but they seemed to have 
nothing of any value, except small grains of gold 
haneincf at their ears and nostrils," Columbus 
gave them the highest of characters in his jour- 
nal. "So loving, tractable, and free from covet- 
ousness they are, that I swear to your High- 
nesses there are no better people, nor any better 
country in the world. They love their neighbors 
as themselves, and their conversation is the 
sweetest in the universe, being pleasant and 
always smiling. True it is they go unclothed; 
but your Highnesses may believe me that they 
have many commendable customs ; and the king 
is served with great state, and he is so staid that 
it is a great satisfaction to see him, as it is to 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 26 1 

think what good memories these people have, 
and how desirous they are to know everything." 

In describing the visit of the Cacique Guana- 
cagiri, the admiral enlarges on this theme. 
"There is no doubt but your Highnesses would 
have been very much pleased to have seen his 
gravity and the respect that his people paid him. 
They were all wonderfully grave, and spoke but 
few words, and those that they uttered, by what 
I could gather, were very deliberate and staid." 

On the night of the 24th the admiral's ship 
was wrecked on a flat, "in a dead calm," as he 
says, "and with the sea as still as the water in a 
dish." The Cacique, with tears in his eyes, ex- 
pressed his grief at the loss, and sent out all the 
people in the place to help with their large 
canoes. "From time to time," says the admiral, 
"he sent some of his kindred weeping, to beg of 
me not to be cast down, for he would give me all 
he had. I do assure your Highnesses that better 
order could not have been taken in any part of 
Castile to secure our things, for we lost not the 
value of a pin." 

The Indians now began to bring in small sup- 
plies of golden plates and ornaments, and assured 
the Spaniards that they would procure as much 



262 The career of columbus. 

more as was required, "and the Cacique, perceiv- 
ing that this was pleasing to the admiral, said 
that he would cause a great quantity of gold to 
be brought from Cibao, a place where much of it 
was found," He offered to cover Columbus with 
gold, if he would wait, "and gave him some 
masks, with eyes, noses, and ears of gold, and 
some of the ornaments which they hang round 
their necks." Some said that the king had 
ordered a life size statue of the admiral to be 
made of the solid metal. All the information 
about Cibao seemed to be genuine, and Colum- 
bus felt sure that he had gained his quest, and 
had at last discovered the wealth of Cipango. 
Finding such signs of gold, he almost forgot 
his grief at the loss of the ship, and he determ- 
ined to return at once in the Nina, without try- 
ing for further discoveries, "lest some other mis- 
fortune might befall him which might hinder 
their Catholic Majesties from coming to the 
knowledge of these newly acquired kingdoms." 

A few days were enough for building the fort 
of La Navidad, where a garrison of forty-two 
men, well equipped with arms and stores of all 
kinds, was left to maintain possession and to find 
out the position of the gold mines. There was 



TitE CAREEk OF COLUMBUS. 263 

talk of a supposed discovery of the rhubarb 
plant, and of other spices which might be found 
in the mountains. But Columbus was in a hurry 
to be gone. He writes that he hoped to find a 
barrel of gold when he returned, and so much 
spice, that before three years had passed they 
might be preparing for the new crusade ; "and to 
this effect it was that I showed your Highnesses 
my desire of seeing the profits of my adventure 
employed on the conquest of Jerusalem, and 
your Highnesses smiled, and said it would please 
you well, and even without those profits you 
would have a good heart for the enterprise." 

On the 4th of January, 1493, Columbus took 
leave of the little garrison, and started on his 
voyage home. The next day they were coasting 
by the fertile slopes of Monte Christ! that rose in 
the shape of a huge pavilion from the plain. 
There was a fine line of mountains inland, look- 
ing like the range that hangs over the Vale of 
Cordova ; the air was bright, and the sea like sap- 
phire. "The whole place is so smiling," they 
said, "that no words of praise could be in the 
least degree exaggerated." Yet Columbus felt 
presentiments that the omens were threatening, 
as if the po\»ers of evil were baffling him in the 



264 THE CAREER OF COLUMBU§. 

moment of victory. Pinzon came in at last with 
a poor set of excuses, and the admiral was sorely 
tempted to embark on a dangerous quarrel. The 
men of the Pinta had found gold, and had heard 
of rich ground in Jamaica, where there were nug- 
gets as large as beans, instead of mere specks and 
grains. But, after all, it appeared that the best 
place was the country round La Navidad, where 
Columbus himself had seen sc much free gold in 
the river sand that he did not trouble to take 
home specimens from the rich bed of the Rio del 
Oro. He was bent on sailing home without the 
least delay, and he wanted to get out of bad com- 
pany as soon as possible; "but there must be no 
more quarrels with Pinzon till the news of the 
voyage reached home." It was dif^cult to avoid 
anger. The Pinta wanted a mast, which could 
easily have been cut out of a great pine tree if 
her captain had not deserted his duty in Cuba. 
By the loth of January they had reached a river 
which still bears Pinzon's name, and the water 
was full of boring worms ; the Pinta had come 
back riddled with them, and quite unsafe for sea. 
It was easy to see where Pinzon had stayed 
when he was gathering gold. The unruly cap- 
tain tried to kidnap some Indians at the last 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 265 

moment. Columbus rebuked him fiercely, and 
showed how worse than foolish were acts of vio- 
lence upon the borders of the Land of Promise, 
and so close to their new-built town. 

On Sunday the 13th, being near the Lovers' 
Cape, the admiral sent a boat ashore, where the 
men found some Indians of a fierce countenance, 
armed with great bows and arrows, like the Eng- 
lish bowmen whom he had seen in the army at 
Dartmouth ; they seemed to be ready to engage, 
and yet were in some consternation. Their faces 
were all daubed over with charcoal, and their 
speech was as fierce as their looks. There was a 
skirmish in which the Indians were easily re- 
pelled, and the admiral was not at all displeased, 
thinking that these were "the bold and resolute 
Caribs." They seem, however, to have belonged 
to the Ciguayo tribes, with whom the Spaniards 
were destined to have much trouble in days to 
come. 

One of these Indians pointed out the way to 
the Carib Islands and the country of the Ama- 
zons, and said that there were masses of a golden 
alloy there as large as the stem of the caravel. 
Columbus noticed that there was a great deal of 
gulf weed drifting about the shore, and it 



266 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

occurred to his mind that this might be a sign of 
land to the eastward, and if this were so, he 
might find that some parts of the archipelago 
were not very distant from the Canaries, and 
creeping from island to island, they might in this 
way diminish their dangers, and find at last a gap 
of perhaps four hundred leagues for their bat- 
tered ships to traverse. 

i On the i6th he actually started from the "Bay 
of Arrows," as he had named the Gulf of Sa- 
mana, and made for the Cannibals' Land. But 
he was uneasy in his mind, believing that an 
approaching conjunction of planets betokened 
great changes in the weather, and they had gone 
but a short distance when a fresh breeze sprang 
up and blew right for Spain. So sad were all the 
faces round him, and so terrible was the condi- 
tion of the ships, that he dared not reject the 
sign ; and so they put about and changed the- 
course, and sailed nearly fifty miles toward home 
before the sun went down. 

Cape St. Elmo was the last land seen. 
"Twenty leagues further there appeared abun- 
dance of weeds, and twenty leagues further sW\\ 
they found all the sea covered with small tunny, 
fish, whereof they saw great numbers the two^ 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 267 

following days, and after them an abundance of 
sea fowl, and all the way the weeds ran with the 
current in long ropes lying east and west, for 
Ithey had already found out that the current 
takes these weeds a long way from land." The 
.signs were still favorable. Although the skies 
were lowering, "the sea ran soft and smooth like 
.a river," for which the admiral offered thanks to 
Heaven. On the 25th food was beginning to 
run short. There was nothing left but bread and 
wine and some of the Indian cakes, but the sail- 
ors harpooned a tunny fish and caught an enor- 
mous white shark. "Holding on their course 
with a fair wind, they made so much way that in 
the opinion of the pilots on the 9th of February 
they were south of the Azores; but the admiral 
said that they were a hundred and fifty leagues 
short, and this was the truth, for they still found 
abundance of weeds, which as they went to the 
Indies they did not see till they were two hun- 
dred and sixty-three leagues west of Ferro. As 
they sailed on thus with fair weather, the wind 
began to rise more and more every day, and the 
sea to run so high that they could scarce live 
upon it," and on Thursday, the 14th, they were 
.driving ijfhich way §oever the wind would carry 



268 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

them. The Pinta had disappeared, and all was 
despair among the admiral's crew. They cast 
lots which of them should carry a candle in pil- 
grimage to Our Lady of Guadaloupe, and the lot 
fell on Columbus, and henceforth he was a pil- 
grim, as he said, and bound to perform his vow. 
A second time they cast lots which of them 
should go or send a pilgrim to Our Lady of Lo- 
retto, and the lot fell on one Pedro de Villa, who 
came from the port of Santa Maria. And again 
a third time they cast lots which of them should 
go on a pilgrimage to Santa Clara of Moguer to 
watch by night and procure a mass, and again 
the lot fell upon Columbus. Then they all 
vowed together that they would go in their 
shirts upon the first land that they might see to 
one of Our Lady's churches; and everyone was 
making vows for himself, because they thought 
that they were all lost in that terrible sea. The 
Nina could hardly keep upright for want of bal- 
last, because all the provision casks were empty. 
The admiral had intended to take in ballast when 
he reached the Amazons' Island ; and when the 
course was changed it was too late to do any- 
thing but hope for the best. He hit upon a 
plan, however, for staving off the danger, by fill- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 269 

ing all his empty casks with sea water so as to 
steady the ship. 

Of this violent storm the admiral wrote these 
words: "I had been less concerned for the tem- 
pest had I been alone in danger, for I know that 
I owe my life to the Creator, and have been at 
other times so near death that the merest trifle 
was wanting to complete it. But what infinitely 
grieved and troubled me, was the consideration 
that, as it had pleased the Lord to give me faith 
and assurance to go upon this undertaking 
wherein I had now been successful, so now that 
my opponents were about to be convinced and 
your Highnesses served by me with honor and 
increase of your mighty state, He should be 
pleased to prevent all this by my death. Even 
death would have been more tolerable were it 
not attended with the loss of all those men 
whom I had carried with me upon promise of a 
happy success; and they, seeing themselves in 
that afifliction, cursed their going out upon the 
voyage and cursed the fear and awe which my 
persuasions had cast upon them, dissuading them 
from going back when outward bound, as they 
had often resolved to do. But above all my sor- 
rows were multiplied when I thought of my two 



270 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

sons at school in Cordova left destitute of friends 
in a strange land, before I had performed, or 
was known to have performed, such service that 
your Highnesses might be inclined to relieve 
them." It seemed as if all the good work had 
been lost when it was almost brought to perfec- 
tion, and all the honor snatched away at the very 
moment of enjoyment. "Being in this inward 
confusion," he wrote, "I thought about your 
Highnesses' good fortune; though I were dead 
and the ship lost, yet your fortune might find for 
you some way of [saving a conquest so nearly 
achieved, and bring the success of my voyage by 
some means or other to your knowledge. For 
this reason, as briefly as the time would permit, I 
wrote on a parchment that I had discovered 
those countries as I had promised, and in what 
way I had done it and in how many days, and 
about the goodness of those lands and the nature 
of the inhabitants, and how your Highnesses' 
subjects were left in possession of all that I had 
discovered. I folded and sealed the writing and 
addressed it to your Highnesses, with a written 
promise upon it of a thousand ducats to anyone 
that should deliver it sealed to you." 

Having made a copy of the memorandum, one 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 271 

of the documents was packed with great care in 
oilcloth and wax and sent adrift in a cask; the 
other was packed in the same way, and set upon 
the top of the poop, so that when the ship sank 
the cask might have a chance of floating. "Sail- 
ing on in such mighty danger and through so 
great a storm, on Friday the 15th at break of 
day, one Ruy Garcia saw land from the round 
top." The admiral concluded that it was one of 
the Azores. On the same day they saw another 
island; "and they ran struggling against wind 
and weather, with continual labor and no respite, 
but were not able to get to land." Next evening 
they succeeded in beating' up against the wind, 
and lay at anchor off the island of Santa Maria. 

The town lay at some distance off, and they 
saw a little hermitage upon the shore, but no 
other building. The boatmen who came out 
with provisions said that this hermitage was 
dedicated to the Virgin, and Columbus at once 
determined that the crew should go barefooted 
in their shirts to hear a mass according to their 
vow. Half the ship's crew being landed for this 
purpose, as soon as they were engaged in prayer, 
the governor broke out upon them with horse 
and foot, and took them prisoners ; and he after- 



272 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ward said that he was acting under strict orders 
received from the Court of Portugal. In parley- 
ing with the admiral alongside the caravel, the 
governor laughed at the commission and letters 
patent from Spain. He said that he knew noth- 
ing about Castile, or the king or queen, but he 
would very soon let Columbus know what it was 
to deal with Portugal. The admiral at first 
negotiated and then threatened in his turn, and 
declared that he would never leave his caravel till 
he had depopulated the island and carried off a 
hundred of its chief inhabitants as hostages. On 
the 20th he went across to St. Michael's to find 
shelter from a sudden tempest, and on his return 
to Santa Maria he was able to recover his men. 
In describing the violent storms which seemed 
to haunt the neighborhood of the Azores and 
Canaries, Columbus says that he never could 
understand why they should occur in those lati- 
tudes, when all the way to the Indies, after pass- 
ing a certain line, the air and sea were always 
serene and calm. It must be, he thought, that 
the theologians and philosophers were right who 
placed the Earthly Paradise in the ends of the 
East, because the climate was so fair; and he 
concluded that the lands which he had found 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 273 

were not far from Paradise, and quite close to 
that extremity of the world. 

When they sailed from Santa Maria the sea 
became smooth again, for which the admiral 
again offered thanks and praise. But another 
storm was brewing, as if the powers of evil must 
prevail in the end, and on March the 3d the tem- 
pest was so great that all their sails were split 
and carried away. Again they cast lots which of 
them should send a pilgrim, in his shirt and bare- 
foot, to Our Lady of La Cinta in the town of 
Huelva, and the lot fell on Columbus again. 
"They were running on without a rag of cloth; 
it was a mighty sea, with high winds and fright- 
ful thunder." The rain fell ' in torrents, said 
Columbus, and the clouds were ablaze with light- 
ning. "It was a ghastly and terrible sight; but 
it pleased Heaven at that moment to render aid 
and to grant me the sight of land." Then they 
made shift to set the mainsail and to bear up 
against the storm until daybreak; and after "a 
night of anguish" they found themselves off 
Cintra at the mouth of the Tagus, and were 
forced by a surprising chance to run into the 
port of Lisbon; "and this to my mind," says the 
admiral, "is the greatest marvel in the world." 



CHAPTER XV. 

'' It was roses, roses, all the way, 

And myrtle mixed in my path like mad ; 
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 

The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
A year ago on this very day." 

King John was at Torres Vedras when he 
heard the news, and received a letter from 
Columbus asking leave to move up to Lisbon for 
fear of an attack by pirates. Assurances were 
given that the ship had not been anywhere near 
Guinea, but had found the Indies, and returned 
by a route hitherto unknown. The king was ill 
at ease in body and mind. He had but just 
recovered from a disease attributed to poison, 
and was moving restlessly about to escape the 
threatened approach of the plague. A rival's 
success was a bitter disappointment, and revenge 
seemed hopeless when he heard of the excited 
crowds going out to stare at the Indians and talk 
about the gold, some shouting for joy at the 
good news, and others storming in the streets 
because Portugal had lost the prize. The royal 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 275 

officers were as eager as the rest, and the captain 
of the port had visited the caravel in a state pro- 
cession "with trumpets, fifes, and drums." The 
king saw that Columbus had escaped the toils. 
If the ship had been detained at the Azores no 
man on board would ever have seen Europe 
again; but as things had turned out it seemed 
advisable to put a good face on the matter, and 
to join in the popular welcome. 

Columbus himself was gratified at the manner 
of his reception. The nobility were sent out 
to meet him, and on coming into the presence 
the king treated him with all respect. He bid 
the admiral sit by him with hat on head, as be- 
fitted a grandee of Spain. The king, we are 
told, heard the story of the voyage with a cheer- 
ful countenance. Late into the night the ad- 
miral told his tale, much in the same words, we 
suppose, as those on the parchment cast into the 
sea, and in the letter written to the Chancellor of 
Arragon in the terrible storm off the Azores. 
Thirty-three days out from the last Christian 
land he had reached the Indies with a fleet from 
Spain, and had found a multitude of countries of 
which he had taken possession in the name of 
the Catholic Kings. Besides the great islands of 



276 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Cuba and Hispaniola, there were four others to 
be specially mentioned as forming the first fruits 
of the enterprise. They were coral islands 
studded about the great Bahama Bank, thickly 
peopled with strange Indian tribes, and bright 
even in winter with palm woods and orchids and 
flowering trees, but they were bare of gold, and 
not worth much to Spain. To everyone he had 
given a significant name. Guanahani had become 
San Salvador, "in remembrance of those things 
so marvelously brought to pass." Opposite lay 
Guanima and her islets, now dedicated to Santa 
Maria de Concepcion. For ten leagues they had 
sailed along the southern shore, and had crossed 
to Fernandina, where he found two main islands 
of wonderful beauty, with a chain of coral rocks 
behind. The fourth he had called Isabella; it 
was the Indian "Saometo," a long island on the 
rim of the bank, by the channel that leads to 
Cuba. To the Portuguese king there would be 
little interest in hearing of the Indians and rocks 
and trees. To ourselves the subject comes 
nearer home when we speculate, amid the conflict 
of theories, which of our outlying settlements was 
the island where the light was seen, and where 
was the exact point where Columbus landed. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. ^11 

Guanahani has now been clearly identified with 
Watling's Island. Almost all the names were at 
one time transposed. The natives were mas- 
sacred or taken to work in the mines and fisher- 
ies abroad; the islands were lost again in their 
forests till they became the lurking-places of the 
pirates ; and when the pirates were expelled and 
negro slavery was introduced, the details of the 
ancient story were all confused. The journals of 
Columbus show that the larger island "opposite 
to Guanahani" was probably the island now 
called "Rum Cay"; that he crossed over to 
Great Exuma with its chain of detached rocks, 
which he called "Fernandina"; and that our set- 
tlement of Long Island is the country of "Sao- 
meto," where he saw the groves of "lign aloes" 
surrounding a shining lake. 

The story of Columbus was concerned with 
still greater things. To Cuba, "the fifth island," 
he gave the name of Juana, in remembrance of 
the Prince in Spain. "When I reached Juana I 
followed the coast westward, and found it so 
large that I felt sure it was the mainland of 
Cathay." After going many leagues, and finding 
nothing but deserted hamlets, he had returned to 
a certain harbor, where two men were sent away 



278 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

to explore. "Meantime I had learned fronn the 
Indians that this part of the country was sur- 
rounded by the sea, and I followed the coast for 
a hundred and seven leagues eastward till it came 
to an end, and there I saw a great island, which I 
called Hispaniola." "The land runs high, and 
there are sierras and peaks to which Teneriffe 
itself is not to be compared, all most beautiful, of 
a thousand different shapes, and all accessible to 
man and covered with trees of a myriad kinds." 
The land contains many gold mines and the 
inhabitants cannot be numbered. "Hispaniola is 
a marvel; in plain and mountain, in meadow and 
field, the lands are so fine and rich for crops and 
cattle and the building of towns." This, he said, 
is something worth coveting, and worth taking 
pains to keep when found. "All these islands," 
he added, "I have taken for their Highnesses' 
absolute use. And there was one large town of 
which I especially took possession, being well sit- 
uated for the gold mining and for commerce with 
Europe or with the countries near the Great 
Khan's land, with which there will be abundance 
of business and gain." 

According to the Portuguese historians, the 
courtiers found Columbus so prolix and so full 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 279 

of the praises of his golden land that he seemed 
to be triumphing over the king and casting up 
again the rejection of his former offer; and the 
king, they say, was so stung by this thought, and 
by a feeling that his laws had been broken, that 
he listened with a darkening brow and returned 
but cool replies. But Columbus noticed nothing 
amiss, and reported that King John had offered 
him any help that might be required on behalf of 
their Catholic Majesties. The king began to 
talk about Prince Henry's time, and the Pope's 
Bulls that gave to Portugal all the lands from 
Cape Nun to India; there was a solemn treaty be- 
sides, which would bar the Spaniards from invad- 
ing his rights. Columbus himself, after all, was a 
captain in his navy, and he supposed that all 
these new conquests belonged to the Portu- 
guese. The admiral said that he knew nothing 
about such things; he had most strictly obeyed 
his orders, as given to him in Spain and pub- 
lished in every port of Andalusia, and those 
orders had been, not to go near Fort St. George, 
or any other part of the king's dominions in 
Africa. "It is very well," the king replied, and 
added that he had no doubt but justice would be 
done in the end. 



28o THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

"Having spent a long time in this sort of dis- 
course, he commanded the Prior of Crato, as the 
greatest man then about the court, to entertain 
the admiral, and to show him all civility and 
respect ; and having stayed there all Sunday, and 
Monday till after mass, the admiral took leave of 
the king, who expressed great kindness and made 
him great proffers, ordering Don Martin de No- 
ronhas to go along with him ; and many other 
gentlemen went for company, and to hear an 
account of his voyage." On his way back he 
passed the monastery of San Antonio near Villa- 
franca, where the queen was lodging, and re- 
ceived a message begging that he would visit 
her; "and she was much pleased to see him, and 
did him all the favor and honor that was due to 
the greatest lord." 

As soon as his visitor was gone, the king sum- 
moned a council, at which it was openly debated 
whether Columbus should be killed in order to 
check the Spaniards. Some offered boldly to 
see to the work themselves. Some urged the 
proposal as a matter of public policy. If the 
prime engineer were removed, the only man in 
fact who knew the work, who would ever per- 
suade Ferdinand again to start such a dangerous 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 281 

undertaking? "When the good of the state is 
concerned, everyone knows that morahty must 
give place to wisdom," Many were shocked at 
this outrageous doctrine, but held that Columbus 
had forfeited his life by breaking the sea laws 
and by deceiving both nations about the matter. 
But King John was reminded that it would be a 
shocking thing to receive a guest one day with 
favor, and to kill him next day without any new 
offense. "Would it not be safer and wiser to 
send out a fleet at once to take possession by 
force of arms of all that properly belonged to 
Portugal?" The wiser counsel prevailed, and 
orders were given to get the ships ready at once. 
But a long negotiation began as soon as the news 
reached Spain; the astute Ferdinand persuaded 
the Pope to fix the boundary line a hundred 
leagues west of the Azores, and though this limit 
was afterward extended in favor of Portugal, the 
lands found by Columbus were justly secured for 
Spain. 

For an account of the homeward voyage we 
return to the journal again. At the very mo- 
ment that he was leaving Llandra to go on board 
his ship, an equerry rode up with a message from 
the king. If Columbus would go by land to Cas- 



282 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

tile, the officer would go with him all the way, 
and would provide for lodgings and changing 
horses and everything that might be required. 
Again, when the offer had been declined, the 
officer came back with presents from the king, 
a mule for the admiral, and another for his pilot, 
Juan de la Cosa. Columbus adds that the 
equerry, as he heard afterward, had brought the 
pilot a splendid fee of twenty "spadines" in gold, 
and he notes the remark of some of the bystand- 
ers that these favors must have been given in 
hopes of impressing the king and queen at home. 
On Wednesday, the 13th of March, he started in 
the morning "on a mighty tide," and set sail with 
a favorable wind for Seville. The next morning 
he found himself off Cape St. Vincent, and 
turned east with a view of putting in at the port 
of Palos. At sunrise on the Friday he was oppo- 
site to the Bar of Saltes, waiting for the tide, and 
about noon he passed the bar, and arrived safe at 
the haven which he had left some months before. 
Here his journal ends. He speaks of making a 
voyage to Barcelona, where Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella were making a royal progress, wishing to 
tell them with his own lips the whole story of 
the voyage, and of the signal miracles which had 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 283 

been wrought in favor of one who had been so 
long derided and treated as a dreamer of dreams. 

As the Nina was casting anchor in the port, 
the Pinta, by a strange chance, was seen creeping 
past the bar. Nothing had been heard of her 
since the storm off the Azores, and it was feared 
that Pinzon and all his crew were drowned. Pin- 
zon himself could not face the admiral. His 
tragic story is known to all. He thought that 
Columbus would never reach land, and was pre- 
pared for a glorious reception ; he seems always 
in his own mind to have claimed the chief merit 
of the enterprise. He designed, says Don Ferdi- 
nand, to go by himself to Barcelona, to carry the 
news to their Catholic Majesties; but they sent 
him orders not to go there without the admiral 
under whom he had been sent to serve, "at 
which he was so concerned and offended that he 
returned indisposed to his native place, where 
within a few days he died of grief." Before Pin- 
zon reached Palos, Columbus had started upon 
his triumphal progress through Spain. 

The first thing of all was to fulfill the vows 
made in the storm. Their pilgrimage to the her- 
mit's chapel had been rudely interrupted by the 
Portuguese j but it was now carried put in every 



284 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

detail at the church of Santa Maria in the con- 
vent of La Rabida. Now followed a journey to 
Santa Maria de Guadalupe, and another pilgrim- 
age to Santa Clara's convent at Moguer, close 
by the port, and whatever else was due to carry 
out their promises ; and when all these duties 
were accomplised the admiral set out on his jour- 
ney. He was forced to stay a little by the way, 
"for so great was the admiration of the people 
through Andalusia and all the way to Catalonia 
that they ran out from all the towns and villages 
to see the procession go by ; and, thus holding 
on his way, he got to Barcelona about the middle 
of April, having sent their Highnesses an account 
of the happy success of his voyage, which was 
extraordinary pleasing to them, and they ordered 
a most solemn reception, as for one who had ren- 
dered them a singular service." Through the 
streets, waving and flaming with banners, the 
crowds poured out to meet Columbus. First 
marched Juan the Pilot beneath the standard of 
Castile, and next to him the painted Indians 
decked out with feather cloaks and plumes; the 
sailors carried palms and fruits, and birds of gay 
plumage, strange fishes, conchs, and turtle 
shells, and hideous lizards on poles ; and there 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 285 

were others with fruits and spices, and huge 
fagots of the "Hgn aloes," and gold dust in cala- 
bashes, and coronets and masks of gold, and 
whatever else would show the wealth of the 
world beyond the sea. The admiral rode last : 

The air broke into a mist with bells. 

The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. 

Ferdinand and the queen were on their thrones 
under a canopy of cloth of gold, "and when he 
went to kiss their hands, they stood up as to 
some great lord, and made a difficulty to give 
him their hands," and bade him be seated at 
their side; "and he was so highly honored and 
favored," says his son, "that when the king rode 
about Barcelona, the admiral was on one side 
and the Infante Fortuna on the other; but be- 
fore that time, none had ever ridden beside his 
Majesty, except the Infante, and he was the 
king's near kinsman." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

" O hundred shores of happy climes, 

How swiftly streamed ye by the bark ! 
At times the whole sea burned, at times 

With wakes of fire we tore the dark ; 
At times a carven craft would shoot 

From havens hid in fairy bowers, 
With naked limbs, and flowers and fruit, 

But we nor paused for fruit nor flowers ; 
For one fair vision ever fled 

Down the waste waters day and night. 
And still we followed where she led 

In hope to gain upon her flight." 

After the feasting at Barcelona was over, the 
business of founding a colony began. The 
Portuguese had been forestalled, and Hispaniola, 
with its clusters of Indian isles, was to be an- 
nexed to the crown of Castile. A short way had 
been found to the mountains of Ophir, where 
Solomon's navies had gathered wealth in a three 
years' voyage, and the gold and silver were wait- 
ing to be hurried across another ocean by a new 
fleet from Tarshish. 

Seventeen ships were equipped at Cadiz with 
all the stores required for biiilding a city at La 

m 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 287 

Navidad, where it was hoped that the garrison 
left by Columbus had already laid up an abun- 
dance of food and treasure. A suflficient number 
of artisans and husbandmen had been engaged 
under contracts with the government, and live 
stock, seeds, and plants of many useful kinds 
were collected for the use of the settlement. 
There was also, unfortunately, a wild rush of 
adventurers excited with "the fame of the gold." 
The ships were crowded with more than five 
hundred unauthorized passengers, besides the 
thousand to whom license had been given ; and 
it was certain that great troubles would arise as 
soon as the provisions began to fail. 

"Furnished in this way," says Don Ferdinand, 
"the admiral weighed anchor in Cadiz Roads on 
the 25th of September, 1493, about an hour 
before sunrise, my brother and I being there, and 
stood southwest for the Canaries." The fleet 
took in provisions and another supply of live 
stock for breeding purposes at Gomera, and 
then sailed out with a fair breeze toward the 
islands where rumor said that they would find 
the Amazons and the cannibals. When they 
were quite a month out from Spain, Columbus 
observed with astgnishment that they had met 



288 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

with none of the floating weed and had seen no 
signs of land. About that time the sailors saw a 
swallow flitting up and down among the ships. 
Within a few hours a violent storm broke on 
them, but the men were cheered at seeing the 
electric flames, which they called the "corpo- 
sant," or body of St. Elmo. "Seven lights 
were seen on the roundtop, and there followed 
mighty rains and frightful thunder. The ancient 
Romans used to say that these flickering meteors 
would settle on the yards, and whistle and leap 
like birds on a bough. If one came alone, they 
feared the "disastrous Helena"; with two or 
more they sailed secure, protected by the sea- 
gods and Helena's brothers, 

Et fratres Helens, lucida sidera. 

A few days afterward several frigate birds 
were seen wheeling aloft about sunset, as if de- 
signing to make a flight for some neighboring 
shore ; and Columbus, taking into account the 
movements of the needle, the continuous rain, 
and all the other signs, concluded that they were 
close to land. Within a few hours, on Sunday, 
the 3d of November, they saw at daybreak the 
mountain mass of Dominica, and its cliffs green 
with foliage to the water's edge ; and in the dis- 



The career of columbus. 289 

tance rose other peaks and volcanic cones along 
the great curve of the Windward Isles. Colum- 
bus was tempted to explore the rocky stronghold 
of the Caribs, but there was no convenient har- 
bor; and he moved the fleet a little northward to 
an uninhabited island, which he called "Marie 
Galante," after the name of his ship. 

The country seemed to be covered with a tan- 
gled forest into which the sailors could hardly 
cut their way. There were huge trees wrapped 
in creepers and covered with flowers and fruit ; 
there were shrubs that smelt like the finest 
cloves, and some of the men were so rash as to 
taste the green apples of the manchineel, which 
drove them nearly mad with pain. The next 
morning they passed on to Guadalupe, making 
straight for the high crater, with its waterfalls 
"dropping from the sky." Here the fleet stayed 
for several days, delayed by the necessity of 
waiting for an exploring party who had lost their 
way in the bush. They said, when they returned 
half dead with fatigue, that the woods were so 
thick and close that they could never see the 
sky. Some of the men had climbed the trees to 
get a glimpse of the stars, but it had been of no 
use, and if they had not come accidentally upon 



290 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the coast they would never have reached the 
ships. A search party, following their traces, 
brought back reports of the riches of the island. 
They had seen silk-cotton trees, and cinnamons 
of an inferior variety ; there were yellow mirobo- 
lans on the ground, and roots which looked like 
ginger, aloes, and mastic in abundance, and lign 
aloes fit for making the brown kind of frankin- 
cense. The villages near the coast were de- 
serted, but the Spaniards succeeded after a time 
in capturing a few of the Caribs and in saving a 
number of their miserable prisoners; and they 
were able to form a clear notion of the modes of 
life in the savage community. The Caribs were 
in appearance not very unlike the Indians seen 
on the former voyage. The men and women 
alike were bulky and muscular, and they seemed 
to be as fierce as wild beasts. The warriors had 
black patterns tattooed on their faces, and they 
stained their bodies red with anatto, and drew 
circles of black and white round their eyes. 
Their heads were pressed into a high square 
shape and shaved up to the crown, with the hair 
hanging loose behind. They were all expert 
archers, using stiff bows and poisoned arrows 
with barbed tips of bone. They had very little 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 291 

knowledge of metals, except copper and a base 
alloy of gold used for ornaments ; their hatchets 
and cutting tools were made of polished stone, 
and with these, it was said, they could cut down 
great ceiba trees for making canoes, which six 
men together could scarcely grasp. They lived 
in small wigwams, but there was a great hall in 
every village with walls of plaited cane and well 
trimmed beams; here they took their meals in 
public, and here they fixed the great looms for 
weaving the coverings of their tents, like those 
used at Genoa for tapestry, and others for mak- 
ing fine cloth from the silk cotton and stuff for 
their hammocks. Columbus noticed that they 
seemed to be more intelligent than the natives of 
Hispaniola. "In other parts the people only 
reckon the day by the sun and the night by the 
moon, but the women here know the other stars, 
and say that it will be time to do such a thing 
when the Bear rises, or when such a star has 
moved into the north." As to their food, they 
were undoubtedly cannibals when they had the 
opportunity. They had strange superstitions 
about abstaining from the flesh of the manatee 
and the turtle. Some of their little foxlike dogs 
were kept for hunting, but more were fattened 



292 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

for food. For domestic pets they kept macaws 
of gorgeous plumage, as large as barn-door fowls. 
They seem to have been clever at gardening and 
agriculture. They had fine crops of maize, and 
yams, and the farinaceous yucca roots, and 
"manioc" for their cassava cakes; and they grew 
large crops of pineapples. "These look like our 
green pine cones," the sailors said, "and they are 
as full of meat as a melon, but much sweeter in 
taste and smell, and they grow about in the fields 
on long stalks like aloes or lilies." 

On the loth of November the fleet made a 
fresh start. Columbus was anxious to reach His- 
paniola, and he now determined to run up the 
long line of islands without any further delay. 
Every few hours new lands appeared, all very 
high and full of woods, rising in pyramidal 
masses out of the smooth blue sea. To each, as 
he passed, the admiral gave some appropriate 
name. Montserrat reminded him of the jagged 
sierra near Barcelona; a steep dome of rock took 
the name of Santa Maria de Redonda. The 
cone of Nevis may have received its title either 
from its snow-white shore or from a floating 
cloud of steam. The "fertile country," as the 
Caribs called it, a few leagues to the north, was 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 203 

called St. Christopher from the shape of Mount 
Misery, which resembled a giant stooping under 
a burden. On their right hand they could just 
see the barren land to which they gave the title 
of Santa Maria la Antigua. 

They rested for one night at St. Martin's, and 
as they started again found pieces of coral en- 
tangled in the anchor flukes ; but, though the dis- 
covery seemed to be valuable, they had no time 
to search for treasures on the way. At Santa 
Cruz there was another garrison of the Caribs. 
They rescued some of the wretched prisoners, 
and experienced in the skirmish that ensued the 
untamable ferocity of the painted warriors and 
the amazonian archers. The ships were now get- 
ting near the rainless zone, and as they were 
passing the desolate Virgin Isles the admiral 
named them in a group after St. Ursula and her 
maidens. But now, turning to the west, they 
came into a pleasanter region, and found a har- 
bor on the farther side of St. John's, or "Porto 
Rico," as it was afterward called, and here for two 
days the weary crews had rest. The island 
seemed more beautiful than any which they had 
seen before. The shore was full of creeping 
vines, the trees were covered with fruit. Some 



294 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

sat among the flowers, and watched the large fal- 
cons hovering; others went fishing, and caught 
skate, and bream, and scads as large as mackerel, 
and other fishes like those in Spain, but finer and 
more delicate in flavor; some tried in vain to get 
speech with the Indians, who were too much 
afraid of the Caribs to stay within sight of a 
stranger. From the prisoners whom they res- 
cued the sailors heard that the natives were 
learning to defend themselves and to imitate the 
Caribs' archery ; and it was said that they were 
even beginning, by way of revenge, to adopt the 
vile practices of the cannibals. Some of the 
Spaniards found an empty village containing 
large wooden halls, with a square in front, and a 
broad road down to the sea; "and there were 
towers plaited with cane on two sides and inter- 
woven with foliage atop, like the arbors in the 
gardens at Valencia; and on the sides looking 
toward the sea were raised balconies for ten or 
twenty people, very lofty and well built." 

"It was at dawn," one of the officers wrote, 
"that we left the island, and before nightfall we 
caught sight of land, which we knew to be His- 
paniola from what we were told by the Indian 
women." The coast near Mona Island, which 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 295 

was passed in their course, is very low and flat, 
and this caused some doubt in the admiral's 
mind ; but the mountains rose into sight, and he 
soon reached the Gulf of Arrows, where they had 
fought their first battle with the Indians, and the 
haven near the promontory of Monte Christi, 
where he had thought of founding a settlement. 

At Monte Christi they stayed for several days, 
looking about for a convenient site ; but though 
the river was all that could be wanted, the 
ground in the neighborhood was swampy and 
unwholesome. On one of the little islands the 
sailors hunted an alligator without success ; they 
said that it was "as big round as a calf, with a 
tail as long as a lance." Some of the others 
made a dreadful discovery. They saw two 
bodies in the river tied with ropes of fiber; one 
had the rope round his neck, and his arms were 
stretched on a kind of cross ; and next day two 
more corpses were seen in the water, and one 
seemed to be that of a man with a beard. They 
could not be quite sure if these were the bodies 
of Spaniards or of Indians ; but there was evi- 
dently great cause for alarm. It seemed incredi- 
ble that any harm could have come to a strong 
garrison from the fawning, childish natives. The 



i9^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

affectionate young Cacique who had helped them 
after the wreck, and the peaceful Guarionex, on 
whose land they were standing, would never have 
joined in any such bloodthirsty treachery. The 
admiral had himself seen a thousand Indians run 
away from one or two sailors, and he had said 
that one might as soon expect an attack from 
them as from so many sheep or rabbits. But 
when they arrived at the sandy bay and the site 
of the town of La Navidad, the worst of their 
fears was justified. They could not see the 
walls of the little fortress. The place was silent 
and deserted. No sound came in reply to the 
roar of the guns from the fleet; and when the 
admiral landed, he found that the fort and the 
Indian houses near had all been burned, "and 
nothing left that had belonged to the Christians, 
but only rags and cloths and such like things, as 
is usual in a place taken by storm." Some of 
the Indians made timid approaches, and showed 
where many of the Spaniards' bodies were laid, 
and, from the look of the vegetation about them, 
they seemed to have been dead for more than a 
month. The Cacique's brother next arrived, and 
showed how the friendly Indians had suffered in 
defending the Spaniards. The Cacique himself 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 297 

was wounded, and his house destroyed. As for 
the Spaniards, they had certainly been unfor- 
tunate. They had quarreled among themselves 
about their gold and Indian wives, and had 
broken up the garrison to go in quest of treasure. 
Some of the men from Biscay had gone up to 
the mountains of Cibao to visit the mines, but 
they had been killed by Caonabo, the King of 
the Golden Mountains; and Caonabo had come 
down with his Caribs, and had burned some of 
the Christians in their huts, and the rest he had 
driven into the sea. The armies of "Marien," 
which the Cacique's brother ruled, had found 
that they could do little against the archers of 
Cibao ; but Columbus, if he pleased, might visit 
the wounded Cacique, and see the gashes which 
his men had received from the spikes in the 
Caribs' clubs and their barbed arrows and poi- 
soned darts. 

Columbus visited the wounded king, and be- 
came convinced of his innocence. He knew at 
the same time that no words were enough to 
describe the ill-conduct of his lost garrison or the 
exquisite pain of his disappointment. Making 
the best of what had happened, he determined to 
leave the Cacique's dominions, and go back to 



298 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

the neighborhood of Monte Christi, within the 
territories of Guarionex. It may be mentioned 
for the sake of clearness in the story that the 
whole island was divided into five kingdoms. 
The northwest end belonged to Guacanagiri, the 
friendly Cacique, who died in misery, loathed 
by his countrymen for having cleaved to their 
oppressors to the end. Next to him, and all 
along the eastern coast, were the domains of 
Guarionex, a peaceful and easy-going man, who 
was afterward seduced into a guerrilla war, and 
who perished in the great storm which destroyed 
the fleet returning to Spain ; and Caonabo the 
Carib held the inland range of Cibao and all the 
lands down to the southern coast. The region 
looking eastward to the cannibals* islands was 
called Higuey; and here also the king took part 
in the civil war, and died in one of the greater 
massacres. The western part of the island was 
called Xaragua, where there were shadowy 
woods and a lonely lake with which many 
ghostly legends were connected. This country 
had no such rich savannas as the plain of the 
Vega in the north, or as the famous pastures of 
Higuey; but it was celebrated for its flowers and 
sweet "mamee fruits," on which the dead were 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 299 

supposed to feed, for the size of its trees, and for 
the abundance of game in the forest. This was 
the birthplace of the famous Anacoana, the wife 
of the Carib Caonabo, who went back after her 
savage husband's death and became the Queen 
of Xaragua ; and she, too, died a horrible death 
by public execution, after her chieftains had all 
been destroyed in a massacre that followed one 
of her famous banquets. 

We must now go back to the time when the 
Spaniards and Indians were still friends, before 
the gold was found, or the war broke out, or the 
natives were reduced to slavery. 

Now, at last, in the neighborhood of Monte 
Christi, as had been before proposed, a site was 
found for the new city of Isabella, intended to 
be the seat of government and the capital of the 
island. There was a fine haven, we are told, 
"and a most delicate river not a bowshot away"; 
it was not far from the wonderful pastures of the 
Vega, fringed with forests of mahogany and * 
basil wood ; and when once the plain was 
reached, one had only to climb the mountains on 
the other side to be among the mines of Cibao. 
The Spaniards had been cooped up for nearly 
three months on shipboard, and required rest ir| 



300 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

a healthy air, with plenty of nourishing food. 
But they found, upon landing, that their hard- 
ships were actually increased. Their provisions 
were already running short, and they were called 
upon to toil at grinding meal and drawing water, 
or at carpenters' and masons' work. All this 
hard living, and the heat of the steaming swamp, 
soon caused an outbreak of disease. The situa- 
tion of the city was ill chosen, as they might 
have known by looking at the seaside villages, 
where the filthy huts were sodden with damp, and 
overgrown with a rank vegetation. The admiral 
was ill on board his ship, too weak even to write 
his journals, and barely able to keep up author- 
ity over his disappointed and mutinous follow- 
ers. The best chance of restoring order was to 
send an expedition to search for treasure in the 
mountains, where Caonabo was said to be en- 
throned in a golden palace with his fair queen 
clad in garlands of flowers, whom the Indians 
called Anacoana, or "the Bloom of the Gold." 
Ojeda and Gorbolan, two gallant young ofificers, 
were sent out to explore the mines in the region 
of Niti and the auriferous streams of Cibao. 
Ojeda was completely successful. Every brook 
that came from the stony range was found to 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 3° I 

contain gold-dust or grains of ore in its channel. 
Ojeda himself picked up a nugget of nine ounces' 
weight; "but the finest thing of all," it was said, 
"was when one of the rocks was struck with an 
Indian's club, and the gold flew out on all sides 
in a sparkling shower." Gorbolan's party was 
almost as fortunate. They had some difficulty 
in fording a great river, "broader than the Tagus, 
and swifter than Ebro" ; but they succeeded 
after some days in reaching a hilly region where 
the natives talked a great deal about their mines. 
One day a chieftain took Gorbolan into a work- 
shop where a smith was making ornaments out 
of a plate of gold which one man could hardly 
carry, and this man readily took them to a place 
not far from his cabin, where four streams ran 
near together, all very rich in nuggets and glit- 
tering ore. This news, says the biographer, 
much rejoiced the admiral, who was then recov- 
ered from his illness. "Accordingly on the I2th 
of March, 1494, he set out from Isabella for 
Cibao to see the mines, with all the people that 
were in health, on foot and on horseback, leaving 
a good guard in the two ships and three caravels 
that remained of the fleet, and causing all the 
ammunition and tackle belonging to the other 



302 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

ships to be put aboard his own, that none might 
rebel with them, as they had attempted to do 
while he was sick." Leaving, therefore, his 
brother Diego in charge of the fleet, he started 
toward Cibao, carrying along with him all the 
tools and materials for building a fort, to keep 
the province under and secure the Christians left 
there to gather gold against any attempt of the 
Indians ; *'and to appear the more formidable he 
made his men march under arms in rank and file, 
with trumpets sounding and colors flying, as is 
usual in time of war." On Sunday, the i6th of 
March, they entered Caonabo's country, "and 
found it rough and stony, full of gravel, with 
plenty of grass, and watered by several gold- 
bearing streams ; and there were very few trees, 
and those mostly pines and palms growing near 
the rivers." The admiral, now considering that 
they were eighteen leagues from Isabella, with a 
craggy country between, thought it well to build 
a fort there, to be called the Castle of St. 
Thomas, to command the country round the 
mines. He waited to see the foundations laid, 
and the walls of clay and timber begun, and re- 
turned to Isabella by easy stages ; and they were 
glad to find on their arrival that all the green 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 303 

crops and the vines and canes were doing well. 
The admiral, we are told, was well enough 
pleased with the air, the soil, and the people. 
He had found several indications of mineral 
wealth besides the great treasure of the gold : a 
little amber near the coast, a vein of lapis lazuli, 
and signs of copper in the mountains; he had 
found ebony, cedar, and mulberry trees in the 
forest, and a kind of fig tree that was said to pro- 
duce scammony, besides the frankincense and 
spices. We are not surprised, therefore, to find 
him writing, even before his successful expedi- 
tion, that the beauty of the country was such, in 
mountains and rivers and well watered plains, 
that "there is no land on which the sun shines 
that can make so fair a show." 

A few days after his return the admiral re- 
ceived a sudden request for more soldiers at Fort 
St. Thomas. The savage Caonabo had come 
home, and was gathering his armies to sweep the 
invaders away. Columbus, it is said, paid very 
little attention to these threats, knowing how 
inconsiderable the Indians were, "and especially 
confiding in the horses, by which they feared to 
be devoured." He did, however, send up sev- 
enty men with ammunition and stores, because 



304 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

he was about to start with the three caravels to 
seek for the neighboring continent, and thought 
it well to leave all things in security behind him. 
While the ships were being fitted out, he super- 
intended the building of the city, "dividing it 
into streets, with a convenient market place," 
and endeavored to bring the river to it by a new 
channel, making a dam to serve the mills, be- 
cause the people were "weak and indisposed," 
and could not carry water so far. 

The government of the colony was placed in 
the hands of a council, of which Don Diego was 
the president, and the admiral set out upon his 
journey to explore the coast of Cuba, "not know- 
ing, indeed, whether it was an island or a conti- 
nent." He left the port on the 24th of April, 
and touched again at Monte Christi and the site 
of La Navidad, and afterward at the neighboring 
Isle of Tortuga. On the 29th he crossed over to 
Cuba, and found a harbor with a narrow en- 
trance, spreading out between the mountains 
into a grassy lake. A trivial story is told of 
their finding a quantity of broiled fish and 
oysters, with iguanas and agoutis hanging up to 
the trees on the shore, and of the shy Indians 
stealing back to say that the fish had been 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. S^S 

cooked in preparation for the banquet of some 
neighboring chieftain. This bears out what has 
been said of Hispaniola, that fish could not be 
kept there uncooked from one day to another, 
because of the alternations of heat and damp. 
The physician who discussed the matter was no 
admirer of the Indian ways ; he liked the maize 
cakes and fish with capsicum saijce, and had 
heard people praise the meat of the agouti ; but 
as to the rest, he says, "They eat all the snakes 
and lizards and land crabs, so that to my mind 
they are more brutal than any of the beasts." 
The Spaniards seem to have first tasted the 
iguana at a banquet given by Anacoana to Don 
Bartholomew in 1496, after which they were al- 
ways talking about "the sweetness of those 
serpents." 

Before going far along the coast, Columbus 
determined to pay a short visit to Jamaica, re- 
membering what he had heard on his former 
voyage about a country called "Babeque," where 
much gold had been found. Approaching the 
island on its northern side, he thought that it 
was the most beautiful place in the Indies. A 
foreground of rolling hills was covered with 
groves of pimento. Every valley, as a modern 



3o6 i^HE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

historian has said, has its rivulet, and every hill a 
cascade, and the rocks overhanging the sea are 
veiled with transparent waterfalls; behind the 
low hills appears a vast amphitheater of forest, 
the outline melting into the distant Blue Moun- 
tains, with their summits lost in the clouds. 
Columbus was astonished at the multitude of In- 
dians, the cro,wd of archers, and the huge canoes 
of cedar and mahogany. The natives at first 
showed fight, but after one sharp skirmish they 
were peaceable and inclined to trade. But it 
soon appeared that the story of the gold was a 
delusion, and Columbus started off again to look 
for the cities of Asia. As he passed along the 
coast of Cuba he met with violent storms, which 
broke out night by night, as soon as the moon 
arose. "But the worst of it was," says his son, 
"that all over that sea, the further they went, the 
more low little islands they met with ; and 
though there were trees in some of them, yet 
others were sandy, and scarce appeared over the 
surface of the water." The nearer they sailed to 
Cuba, the pleasanter the islets appeared, and the 
admiral gave them all one name together, and 
called them the "Queen's Garden." They saw 
many strange and interesting sights. In one of 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 307 

the deep channels there were Indians fishing for 
turtle with a remora, or sucking fish, after a fash- 
ion well known in Africa. On some of the sand 
banks stood regiments of scarlet flamingoes, on 
others there were gray cranes like those in Spain, 
and sea crows, and an infinite number of little 
singing birds, "and all the air as sweet as if they 
were in a garden of roses." 

Columbus had expected by this time to have 
found the Golden Chersonese, or some civilized 
country near the Ganges ; and he had dreamed, 
with a bold flight of fancy, that he might bring 
his little fleet to the Red Sea, or sail home round 
the cape which the Portuguese had discovered in 
Africa. But after wandering about the flats and 
shoals for weeks in great perplexity, he found his 
food running short. He never knew that he was 
at that moment quite close to the open sea be- 
yond Cuba. He thought it was now well proved 
that this land which they had followed for hun- 
dreds of miles was part of the Asian Continent. 
His captains and crews were ready to swear to 
the fact, and they all undertook to suffer the 
severest penalties if they should ever say any- 
thing to the contrary. While he turned the mat- 
ter over in his mind, the men began to find prod- 



3o8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

igies and omens in the natural phenomena of the 
tropics. On one day there was a migration of 
turtles "of a vast bigness and in such numbers 
that they covered the sea" ; the next morning a 
cloud of sea crows darkened the sun ; and for the 
whole of the day after that the air was black 
with swarms of butterflies. Within a few hours 
afterward they began to retrace their course. 
On June the 13th they anchored at the Isle of 
Pines, .and sailing to the south again went up 
into a clear, blue channel, which turned out to be 
an inland lagoon. They found it shut up, as if it 
had been suddenly closed in despite of their 
efforts; and the terrified crews thought that the 
forces of nature were hemming them in on all 
sides. But the admiral kept a cheerful counte- 
nance, and thanked Heaven that he was forced 
back the way he came, "for if they had con- 
tinued on that course they might have run 
themselves into some place where they could 
hardly get out, when perhaps they might have 
neither provisions nor ships for returning, which 
now they might easily do." Back again they 
sailed to the high cliffs of the Isle of Pines, and 
then passed with amazement into strange seas, 
patched all over with green and white, or thick 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 300 

like milk and dazzling to the eye, and then 
through waters as black as ink, until at last they 
came again to the eastern end of Cuba. The 
men by this time were much spent for want of 
provisions; "they had nothing for food but a 
pound of rotten biscuit in the day, with a half 
pint of wine, unless they happened to catch some 
fish," as the admiral wrote in his journal, "and I 
myself," he added, "am on the same allowance. 
God grant it may be to His honor and for your 
Highnesses' services, for I shall never again for 
my own benefit expose myself to such sufferings 
and dangers, since never a day passes but I see 
that we are all on the brink of death." 

About the middle of July they met some 
friendly Indians, who relieved them with sup- 
plies of yams and cassava bread, and soon after- 
ward they pushed across to the southern coast of 
Jamaica. "The country all along was most de- 
Hghtful and fruitful, and all the coast full of 
towns, the people following the ships in their 
canoes, and bringing such provisions as they eat, 
which was much better liked by the Spaniards 
than what they had found elsewhere." Colum- 
bus noticed the magnificent scenery on this 
coast, the gigantic cliffs, and the Blue Mountains 



3IO THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

rising "in stupendous and soaring ridges." The 
land, he noted, was as high as any that he had 
ever seen, and he beheved that it reached far 
above the region that breeds the storms. On 
the 20th of August they reached Cape Tiburon, 
the nearest point of Hispaniola, and coasted 
afterward as far as the island of Alto Velo, where 
the ships parted company for a time. They pro- 
ceeded shortly afterward to a "delightful coun- 
try" near the Bay of Ocoa, and here they heard 
that some Spaniards had arrived, and nine men 
were landed to carry news of the admiral across 
the country to Isabella, while the fleet proceeded 
to Higuey. The weather seemed inclined to 
break, and one day a monstrous fish was seen, 
which seemed to be the harbinger of a storm. 
The description is confused and evidently exag- 
gerated, but it may well have been one of the 
great horned rays which are sometimes found in 
those seas. "It was as big as a whale," the men 
said, "and had a great shell like a turtle; there 
were two fins like wings, and a tail like a tunny, 
and the head, thrust out of the water, seemed to 
be as large as a wine cask." The admiral sought 
at once for a harbor, and was so fortunate as to 
find the channel behind the island of Saona, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 311 

where he saw an eclipse of the moon, by which 
he endeavored to calculate his distance from 
Spain. When the ships got together again they 
made for the Mona Passage, the admiral having 
formed a rash plan of visiting the Carib Isles, 
and of killing some of the cannibals and breaking 
up their war canoes. But at this point he was 
overtaken by illness. His journals came to an 
end. He could only say afterward that in going 
from Mona to Porto Rico his fatigue, and weak- 
ness, and want of proper food "cast him into a 
dangerous disease between a pestilential fever 
and lethargy, which deprived him of his sense 
and memory." His men took him back to the 
colony, where his health at last came back, after 
a sickness of five months, attributed to his great 
sufferings and extraordinary weakness; "for 
sometimes he had not slept three hours in eight 
days, which seems almost impossible, were not 
he himself and his men witnesses of its truth." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

" Chains for the Admiral of the Ocean ! chains 
For him who gave a new heaven, a new earth. 
As holy John had prophesied of me ; 
Gave glory and more empire to the Kings 
Of Spain than all their battles ! chains for him 
Who pushed his prows into the setting sun. 
And made West East, and sail'd the Dragon's Mouth, 
And came upon the Mountain of the World, 
And saw the rivers roll from Paradise." 

Five days and nights Columbus lay crippled 
and blinded, and when he woke he saw the faces 
of both his brothers at the bedside. The ad- 
miral was rejoiced to see Bartholomew's tall 
shape and sturdy countenance. Diego's gentle 
spirit had been too weak to deal with a turbulent 
soldiery; but the powers of the president had 
been re-enforced by his brother's timely arrival. 
When Columbus had first started from Palos 
Bartholomew had been working for his cause in 
London, and it was only when bringing back the 
English king's acceptance that he heard how the 
task was already done. Too late to join the sec- 
ond expedition, he was sent out a few months 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. IX'Z 

afterward in charge of a squadron. He found 
the colony in a sad state. The admiral was 
away, and Diego could hardly control his col- 
leagues. The forces placed under Margarite 
were mutinous, and their commander soon after- 
ward went home, and left the soldiers to rob and 
kill as they pleased. The natives were not slow 
to retaliate. Straggling pillagers were cut off in 
the woods; a vassal of Gaurionex killed ten in 
this way, and burned a hospital with forty pa- 
tients. The same chief was blockading the fort 
in the Vega. The bold Ojeda still held his own 
at St. Thomas, but was hard pressed by the 
armies of Caonabo. 

Columbus soon received a visit from the Ca- 
cique who had befriended him before. He 
spoke of his own grievances against the Caribs, 
and revealed a general plot for taking the city 
and driving the white men into the sea. Colum- 
bus at once rose to the occasion. By a bold ex- 
ercise of power he appointed his brother to the 
new office of Adelantado, or Lord Deputy of the 
Indies. The fort in the Vega was relieved, and 
Ojeda, in a dare-devil adventure, brought in Cao- 
nabo in the shackles which he had mistaken for 
ornaments. The Carib's brother raised an army 



314 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

for his rescue, but was beaten and captured in 
the opening skirmish. Notwithstanding these 
defeats, a huge Indian force assembled in the 
woodlands of the Vega ; and on the 24th of 
March, 1495, Columbus and the Adelantado 
marched out with two hundred men-at-arms and 
twenty horsemen, besides friendly natives, and 
they took with them a score of Majorcan hounds, 
as terrible to a naked foe as the firearms or the 
steel-clad cavalr3^ The Spaniards divided their 
force so as to attack on two sides at once, but 
the Indian lines broke at the first volley, and the 
"faint-hearted creatures" fled. It was like the 
ancient comedy of the Greeks fighting against 
the Sparrow-folk armed only with fish bones. 
To Columbus it seemed like a miraculous vic- 
tory. The country was thenceforth regarded as a 
fair prize of war, and a tribute of gold or cotton 
was imposed, according to the nature of the dis- 
trict. The Indians were forced to labor, and 
were fast sinking into slavery. As a last re- 
source they tried to starve their masters, ravaging 
the fields and taking refuge in the clefts of the 
mountains; but they were hunted like wild 
beasts, with only the choice of death by famine 
or by the edge of the sword, and the feeble rem- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 315 

nant came in at last and yielded a sullen obedi- 
ence. 

The king and queen had written to the admiral 
in gracious terms ; but his enemies filled the air 
with complaints of the harshness of his govern- 
ment, and they railed at the scarcity of the gold, 
picked out in grains from the stream, or welded 
into small plates, perhaps after ages of labor. 
The movement had a double result. Licenses 
for discovery were offered to private adventurers, 
and it was determined to send out a commis- 
sioner to inquire into the alleged abuses. Juan 
Aguado was chosen for the post. He was be- 
lieved to be the admiral's friend, and his instruc- 
tions were drawn so as to give the least possible 
offense. But he took up such an arrogant atti- 
tude on arriving at the colony, as if it were his 
chief business to collect accusations against 
Columbus, that all the Spaniards were convinced 
of the admiral's approaching downfall. 

Columbus felt that it was time to meet his 
enemies face to face. He announced that he 
would return with Aguado, and began to get 
together a collection of rarities and valuable 
produce. The queen had told him of her delight 
in studying these samples of another world, and 



3l6 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

he was anxious besides to prove the value of his 
latest discoveries. There were amber and coral 
and shells, and flamingoes and macaws, with a 
great store of cassia, and precious gums and 
spices. He had specimens of ebony and mahog- 
any, and "brasil wood" for dyeing; there were 
specimens of copper and lapis lazuli, and 
golden coronets and masks, with gold ore in 
pieces like pigeons' eggs, and Caonabo's heavy 
chain and necklace, in which the prisoner 
was to be paraded before the court in Cas- 
tile. 

When the ships were just ready for sea, the 
port was swept bare by a hurricane, and Aguado 
was compelled to wait while a new caravel was 
constructed from the wreckage. During this 
interval the good news arrived of a discovery of a 
gold mine at La Hayna, in the south of the 
island. A Spaniard, convicted of stabbing in a 
duel, had fled beyond the mountains of Cibao, 
and had married the queen of a rich country 
through which the Ozama flowed. The Lady 
Catalina, to use her adopted name, showed a 
gold-field to her new friends where the ore was 
abundant and fine in quality; and Columbus felt 
sure that he had found the storehouse of Solo- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 3^7 

mon and the sources of wealth that had adorned 
the Temple. 

The two vessels sailed on the loth of March, 
1496, carrying a number of invalids and disap- 
pointed adventurers. Caonabo, who died on the 
voyage, and about thirty other Indians, were on 
board the admiral's ship. It was long before 
they could clear the eastern cape, and for many 
days afterward they beat up against the trade 
wind, and were forced at last to make for Marie 
Galante and Guadaloupe. On the 20th of April 
they set out again, "with the wind very scant." 
A month of misery had passed, with food very 
short, and the pilots "going like blind men," 
when Columbus made out by the variation of the 
compass that they had reached the "hundred 
league line." Then came a few days of great 
distress, and the crew were for killing the Indi- 
ans, "but the admiral used all his authority 
against it, saying that they were human crea- 
tures, and ought not to be used worse than the 
rest" ; and that night, while the pilots were dis- 
puting,'^he told them to take in sail, because they 
were near Cape St. Vincent, and in the morning 
they saw the sands of Odemira and the cape 
itself in the distance. 



3i8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

The king and queen received him at Burgos 
with undiminished favor. He was allowed to 
exhibit his samples of produce, and to give his 
own account of his troubles and victories. The 
queen was especially interested in the Indians, 
and their customs and beliefs. She learned that 
"they were not the worst kind of pagans," since 
they had some notion of a Deity and a future 
state. Their creed was embodied in barbarian 
songs, which they sang in their moonlight 
dances. The chiefs had amulets and wooden fig- 
ures by which they claimed to control the forces 
of nature. They had childish legends about the 
origin of mankind, and the transformation of 
ancestral beings into birds or frogs or trees. 
They were chiefly guided by oracles taken by 
their sorcerers, or "medicine men," who made 
themselves mad for the time by inhaling the 
powder from a species of acacia. 

When Columbus landed he found a squadron 
setting out for the colony under Pedro Nino, 
whom he had known at Huelva, and he dis- 
patched a letter to Don Bartholomew asking for 
more gold, and suggesting that all natives con- 
cerned in the murder of Spaniards should be 
shipped as slaves. The ships came back with 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 319 

nothing but prisoners of this kind, though Nino 
foolishly boasted that he had "a cargo of gold in 
bars." The disappointment caused a grievous 
delay. The admiral was eager to explore the 
continent, and hoped by taking a southerly 
course to avoid the network of the islands. But 
the whole scheme had become hateful to the 
public mind. The king was deeply engaged in 
an expedition to Naples and the projected mar- 
riages of his son and daughter, on which the 
greatness of Spain appeared to depend. It was 
difficult to get crews together for a fresh voyage, 
and the admiral had to be content in the end 
with a fleet of six vessels manned almost entirely 
by convicts. 

He sailed from San Lucar on the 30th of May, 
1498, taking a circuitous course to avoid the 
French cruisers off Cape St. Vincent. After 
spending a few hours at Porto Santo, he went to 
Madeira and thence to Ferro, where he sent 
some of his caravels across by the ordinary route. 
He himself proceeded with half the fleet to the 
Cape Verde Islands, intending to strike the 
equator and to find his way through the torrid 
zone. The cross currents and the hot mists 
compelled a change of course, and they sailed 



320 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

into a region southwest of Fogo beyond the 
range of the trade wind. For eight days there 
was a calm, with violent heat ; the casks burst 
and the provisions were spoiled, "and had it not 
rained sometimes they thought that they would 
have been burned alive." When the wind re- 
vived they made toward the Carib Islands and 
saw land one day about noon, and then three 
peaks together, and Columbus named the new 
country after the Trinity. 

Trinidad lies near the mouths of the Orinoco, 
and is divided from the continent by two narrow 
straits. The sea inclosed between the promon- 
tories is known as the Gulf of Paria. To Colum- 
bus it was the "Golfo Triste," or the "Golfo de 
Balena," a place where he was in peril of the 
leviathan ; while the names of the Serpent's 
Mouth and Dragon's Mouth recalled the memory 
of his escape from "the heads of the dragons in 
the waters." As they passed along the south of 
the island the country looked green and fresh, 
with palms by the water's edge. "It was like the 
gardens of Valencia in March"; and soon after- 
ward they found themselves under an April sky. 
They anchored by a smooth strand "and took 
water from a delicate brook" ; and they noticed 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 321 

that the sea ran like a turbid river, as happens at 
San Lucar when the Guadalquivir is in flood, 
"which never ceases flowing toward the bay, 
however the tide may rise." Anchoring next 
day at the sandy cape, just within the narrows of 
the Serpent's Mouth, they were nearly over- 
whelmed by a sudden flood advancing against 
the current. "In the dead of the night," writes 
the admiral, "I heard an awful roaring, and saw 
the sea rolling mast-high, with a great wave and a 
noise of breakers." The anchors gave away, and 
the mountain of water passed under the ships 
without much harm being done ; but it was nec- 
essary to leave that dangerous roadstead without 
delay, and so with much labor they struggled 
through reefs and shoals into the landlocked gulf. 
Going northward for a few leagues they reached 
two headlands, with green islands between them, 
and here they felt the current plunging into the 
Dragon's Mouth, and heard the uproar of the 
fresh waters struggling against the tide. This 
was, in fact, the only way by which they could 
reach the open sea, but to evade the danger they 
crossed the entrance of the channel, and coasted 
down the opposite shore, hoping that Paria 
might prove to be an island, and that they might 



322 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

escape on its further side. The coast at first was 
wild and broken, but after a time they passed a 
sharp promontory, called "the Needle's Point," 
and came into a region of tropical verdure, which 
seemed to be "the loveliest country in the world." 
The natives of Trinidad and Paria were fairer 
in complexion than any of the people seen on 
the previous voyages. Columbus had expected 
to find them as black as negroes in a country so 
near the equator, and he had feared, indeed, that 
the whole region would have been parched up 
like the African deserts. He met some of the 
islanders on his passage into the Serpent's 
Mouth. A chief came out with a score or more of 
warriors in one of the long cottonwood canoes. 
The Indians negotiated, and hung off and on, 
but seemed willing to take the toys held out to 
them over the side of the ship. The admiral, to 
draw them nearer, set a musician on the poop 
with tabor and pipe, and told some of the young 
men to dance. The natives, taking it as a chal- 
lenge, seized bows and bucklers, and let fly a few 
arrows at the dancers. The sailors ran for their 
crossbows, and began to give the Indians a les- 
son ; but the canoe moved off to another vessel, 
"clapping close to her side without the least ap- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 323 

prehension," and the warriors were soon enriched 
with tin bowls and bits of looking-glass, while 
their chief was exchanging his gold coronet for 
the pilot's red cap. They wore their hair rather 
long, and cut in the Spanish fashion, and they 
had bright scarfs about their heads and bodies, 
which looked like the silk handkerchiefs that 
form part of the Moorish costume. When the 
ships reached Paria the natives came out "in 
countless nunibers." Most of them wore orna- 
ments of gold or colored stones on their breasts, 
and some had strings of pearls on their arms. 
The Spaniards thought that the pearls were bred 
in the oysters which they saw hanging to the 
roots of the mangroves, but the Indians said that 
they came from a sea beyond them in the north. 
Two boats' crews were sent ashore to procure 
fine specimens for the queen. The sailors were 
very hospitably received ; they said that there 
were two large houses in the village with balco- 
nies and rows of seats, and that they had been 
regaled with white maize beer and a darker drink 
tasting like cider, made from the honeyed sap of 
an aloe. 

The little vessel called the Postman was sent 
on to look for a channel into the ocean, but the 



324 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

captain soon came back and reported that no 
outlet could be found. He had reached another 
fresh-water sea of a circular shape, to which 
Columbus gave the name of the Gulf of Pearls, 
and there were four bays set at equal distances, 
with rivers opening into them, so that Paria was 
clearly part of the continent. There was no exit 
except through the Dragon's Mouth, so the ships 
were turned toward the headlands again, and 
were borne swiftly along the current, and thrust 
out by the help of a strong breeze through the 
rolling masses of water. After a journey of 
some days along the Pearl Coast they crossed 
over to Margarita, "the jewel of the islands," 
and the sandy wastes of Cubagua, where the 
pearl fishery was afterward established. They 
bought a large quantity of pearls from the fisher- 
men, and made arrangements for a future trade. 
There is a mention of two groups of rocks, called 
the Guards and the Witnesses, and of the coast 
stretching on toward Venezuela; "but the ad- 
miral said that he could not give such an account 
of it as he desired, because through too much 
watching his eyes were inflamed, and he was 
forced to take most of his observations from the 
sailors and pilots." 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 3^5 

He seems to have connected his misfortune 
with a vision of triumph, as if it was through 
these pains that he had visited the outgoings of 
Paradise. In the travels of his favorite, "Mande- 
ville," he found the picture of what he witnessed 
in the Gulf of Paria. The Fathers had agreed 
that Eden was in the ends of the East ; so held 
St. Ambrose, and Isidore, and the Venerable 
Bede. The most learned scholars were of opin- 
ion that it was the highest point in the world ; 
thus said Scotus, and Strabus, and the writer of 
the "Historia Scholastica," and Mandeville even 
thought that it reached near the Circle of the 
Moon. By its rivers, he said, no man might go, 
their shock is so rude and sharp ; the water came 
down "outrageously in great waves," so that no 
ship could move against it ; and he described the 
"awful roaring," and said that "many had be- 
come blind, and many deaf, for the noise of the 
water." Columbus was convinced that he had 
seen these gigantic cataracts. "There are great 
signs," he said, "that this is the place of Para- 
dise ; I have never read or heard of fresh water 
so abundant and so mixed with the sea." He 
thought that his new "heaven and earth" were 
different from the old world in their nature. At 



326 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS, 

the line of a hundred leagues from the Azores 
there had been strange frondage in the sea, new 
motions of magnetic force, and a change in the 
courses of the stars. When he reached the 
islands he found a rich verdure and "a most pellu- 
cid air" ; and as he went deeper into the tropics 
the people were lighter in color, and the climate 
grew daily more genial. He imagined that this 
part of the earth was the highest and closest to 
the firmament. He supposed that there was a 
gradual rise for some thousands of miles over a 
circle comprised in the new hemisphere. Its 
outer line was reached at the point where the 
face of nature changed, not far from the Azores, 
and its center might be found on the equator, 
below Paria and the fresh-water sea. "I have no 
doubt," he adds, "that if I could pass beyond 
the equator, after reaching the highest point 
I should find a mild climate again and fresh 
changes in the sea and the stars." If the great 
stream that he had seen was not one of the rivers 
of Eden, it must come from "a vast land in the 
south," of which nothing was known; "but the 
more I reason on it," he concluded, "the more I 
hold it true that the Earthly Paradise is there." 
He reached the colony by the end of August, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. PI 

and moved forward to the Ozama River, where 
Don Bartholomew was building the new city of 
San Domingo, so named in memory of old Do- 
menico Colombo. Here the admiral heard the 
story of all the quarrels that had followed his 
return to Spain. Guarionex had attacked the 
fortress in the Vega, because some of his subjects 
had been burned for blasphemy. There was a 
plot to massacre all the Christians at the full 
moon, which came to nothing from the Indians' 
ignorance of such calculations. Roldan, to 
whom the admiral had intrusted the "rod of 
justice," had set himself up as a protector of the 
disaffected. His crew of desperadoes had twice 
threatened the fort, and had plundered the stores 
at Isabella. They were now idling in Xaragua, 
the land of fruit and flowers, and had been joined 
by many of the sailors of the ships last sent from 
Spain. The admiral's own relations, Arana and 
Giovanni Colombo, were in command of two of 
these ships, and they were now awaiting orders 
in the port. 

Columbus found it almost impossible to pacify 
the rebellious alcalde, but after months of par- 
leys and bargaining a peace was arranged on very 
disastrous terms. The mutineers were allowed 



328 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

to send home their prisoners, including even the 
daughters of several chieftains, shamefully torn 
from their homes to be sold for slaves at Seville ; 
and one of the main causes of the admiral's dis- 
grace was the queen's wrath at this outrage on 
her "Indian vassals," Roldan himself, as if in 
burlesque, was appointed chief justice of the 
colony, and a catastrophe was certain to occur 
when he began to wield his powers against his 
wild companions. In September, 1499, the bold 
adventurer, Ojeda, arrived with four ships laden 
with slaves from the Carib Islands. This was the 
famous voyage in which Juan de la Cosa served 
as pilot and Amerigo Vespucci as general ad- 
viser. They had followed the admiral's track by 
the Pearl Coast, and far to the west had found a 
warlike people who fought them on equal terms, 
and they had nothing to show for spoils but a 
few hides and jaguar skins. They had now come 
across to Hispaniola to lay in cassava bread and 
to load a cargo of logwood. Ojeda gave out that 
Columbus was in disgrace at home and that the 
queen, his only friend, was already at the point 
of death. "This Ojeda troubled me much," the 
admiral said, "for he announced that he was sent 
with promises of gifts and liberties, and collected 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 329 

a large band around him." Roldan was charged 
to watch his proceedings and keep him in play, 
and he succeeded at last in persuading the visit- 
ors to continue their voyage. 

Columbus was now nearly worn out with his 
troubles. The Spaniards, he complained, made 
war on him as if he were one of the Moors. "On 
Christmas Day, being forsaken by all the world, 
the Indians and rebel Christians fell upon me, 
and I was reduced to such distress that to avoid 
death, leaving all behind, I put to sea in a little 
caravel." He fell into a trance, and heard mys- 
tical words of comfort ; all his enemies were to be 
scattered, and all his hopes fulfilled ; and on that 
very day he heard of a broad tract of land "with 
gold mines at every step." This field was in fact 
so rich that it employed nearly the whole popu- 
lation. One man collected as much as forty 
ounces in a day. A huge mass of gold was found 
lying in the bed of a brook when Bobadilla had 
assumed the government. It was lost in the 
storm of 1502, when Bobadilla was drowned with 
Roldan and the unfortunate Guarionex: 

The hurricane of the latitude on him fell, 
The seas of our discovering over-roll 
Him and his gold. 

About this time a more serious rebellion broke 



33° THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

out. Hernando de Guevara, a young nobleman 
in disgrace, had retired with hawk and hound to 
a hunting lodge belonging to his cousin, Adrian 
de Moxica. Their sport led them to the forests 
near the salt lake in the territories of Anacoana- 
Guevara had visited her court and had betrothed 
himself to her child, almost as celebrated for 
beauty as her mother, "the Bloom of the Gold." 
The young man was under Roldan's supervision. 
There were elements of danger in the proposed 
alliance, and the consent of the government was 
refused. Guevara sent for a priest to baptize the 
princess, with a view to immediate marriage; but 
Roldan arrested him in her very presence, and 
sent him as a prisoner to San Domingo. Adrian 
de Moxica made off at once to his old haunts 
and collected a large force, intending to rescue 
his relation and to put Roldan and the admiral 
to death. They were foiled by Roldan's activity, 
and were captured at a midnight council; and 
Columbus, to whom the matter was referred, 
reluctantly sanctioned their execution. "I could 
not have acted otherwise," he afterward said,- 
"even toward my own brother, if he had sought 
to slay me and rob me of the lordship which the 
king and queen had placed in my charge," 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 11^ 

There was a painful scene when Moxica was led 
out to be hanged. He struggled and delayed to 
make confession, and Roldan at last lost all 
patience, and ordered him to be thrown from the 
battlements. Guevara and several of Moxica's 
other companions were also convicted, and were 
left for execution in the fortress, 

Columbus was now quite ready to leave the 
island, and "to give up the government of this 
dissolute people." But Bobadilla was already on 
his way as a high commissioner with plenary 
powers; and on the 2d of August, 1500, his two 
ships sailed into the harbor of San Domingo. 
As he passed between the banks of the Ozama 
he saw on either side a gibbet with a dead Span- 
iard, and the first thing he heard on landing was 
that several more were lying under sentence of 
death. The air was full of complaints against 
Columbus and his brothers, and a mob of wit- 
nesses came forward to charge them with horri- 
ble cruelties. Bobadilla seems to have com- 
pletely lost his head. Assuming the whole 
power of the government, as he had a right to do 
in case of need, he seized the fortress, and placed 
Don Diego under arrest. The admiral was 'u\ 
the Vega when he first heard the news of Boba, 



332 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

dilla's strange conduct, and he had moved to the 
neighborhood of La Hayna when he received a 
peremptory summons to attend at San Domingo 
for trial; and the messengers showed him a letter 
from the king and queen requiring implicit obedi- 
ence. Don Bartholomew was away in Xaragua, 
chasing the last remnant of the rebels, when he 
received a note from Columbus advising him to 
yield without resistance. As each arrived they 
were thrown into irons amid jeers and shouts and 
blowing of horns, and after the pretense of a 
trial they were all convicted and sent home in 
chains by separate ships. 

The insults offered to the great admiral, the 
finder of a world for Spain, were received at 
home with an outburst of anger and indignation. 
His own wrath was expressed in a letter sent to 
a lady at the court, in which he showed the 
meanness and vulgarity of the measures adopted 
against him. If he were to be arraigned he had 
hoped to be treated in a manner becoming his 
great ofifice, as when a proconsul of old was im- 
peached for exactions in his province, or some 
valiant captain for what he had done in a con- 
quered territory. The king and queen accepted 
all his explanations, acquitted him of all charges, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. IZ?) 

and among other marks of their favor invited 
him to visit them at Granada. The admiral ap- 
peared, erect in his fine dress, and attended by 
his squires and pages. He seemed fierce and 
angry as he faced the king, but when he met the 
queen's looks, as he knelt before her, they both 
burst into tears. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

" In the end 
I learned that one poor moment can suffice 
To equalize the lofty and the low. 
We sail the sea of life : a calm one finds, 
And one a tempest ; and, the voyage o'er, 
Death is the quiet haven of us all." 

Several months were spent at Seville in pre- 
paring the mystical "Book of Prophecies" show- 
ing that Columbus was destined to recover the 
Holy Places as well as to carry light into the 
dark regions of the world. The admiral had 
renounced his visions of wealth and honor, but 
after a time he began to feel the need of another 
voyage, in order to find the strait leading past 
the Southern Continent into the expanse of the 
Indian Sea. He thought that the stream which 
hurried past Margarita must have an outlet not 
far from the equator. He intended to make the 
attempt from Jamaica, being still prohibited from 
visiting Hispaniola; and indeed Ovando, the new 
governor, had orders not to allow a landing 
unless the admiral was actually returning to 

334 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 335 

Spain. From Jamaica he meant to sail on a 
direct line to the neck of water drawn on his 
map and placed near the point where he was 
afterward barred by the Isthmus. 

In the spring of 1502 he went out with four 
ships. One of these was under Don Bartholo- 
mew's command, and he took with him on his 
own vessel his son Ferdinand, then barely four- 
teen years old. The boy's notes of the voyage 
are to be found in the close of the biography ; 
and a singular charm is added to the story by his 
fresh descriptions of strange lands, and fishing 
adventures, and hand-to-hand fighting with rebels 
and savages. 

From the Canaries they ran with a fair wind to 
"the Woman's Island," as the natives called Mar- 
tinique, and took in wood and water, and "made 
the men wash their linen," as Ferdinand notes. 
They lay for a few hours in a quiet roadstead off 
Dominica, and then moved upward along the 
chain of islands till they reached the Carib settle- 
ments in Santa Cruz. In the last week of June 
they were coasting by Porto Rico, "the island of 
St. John," and rested in the sunny bay which 
had so delighted the sailors in a former voyage. 
Here Columbus determined at all hazards to pass 



53^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

over to Hispaniola. One of his ships was ahnost 
useless, even under the skillful guidance of Don 
Bartholomew, "She could carry no sail, and her 
side would lie almost under water" ; and it 
seemed almost impossible that she could keep 
up with the others in the passage to Paria. 
Columbus arrived at the port of San Domingo on 
the 29th, and sent in a request to exchange the 
ship for a small caravel at his own cost. He saw 
that a fleet of eighteen sail was just ready to 
start for Spain, carrying his enemies, Bobadilla 
and Roldan, as it turned out, with a treasure of 
^80,000 sterling, besides his own humble fortune. 
He felt sure from signs in the sea and air that 
a great storm was coming, and begged that the 
fleet might be detained and his own vessels 
allowed to run in for shelter. His requests and 
warnings were treated with contempt, and al- 
most the whole of the king's fleet was destroyed 
by the predicted hurricane. Columbus found a 
safe anchorage, but his three consorts were car- 
ried far out to sea. "They all suffered very 
much, except the admiral;" and they agreed 
afterward, on comparing their adventures, that 
"Bartholomew had acted like a good sailor in 
going out to weather the gale, but the admiral 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 33 f 

had hugged the shore like a wise astronomer, 
because he knew which way the blast would 
come." 

After the storm, says Ferdinand, they had a 
little breathing time, and the men were allowed 
to go fishing ; they harpooned a sunfish asleep, 
that looked like a church bell half out of the 
water, and they caught a young manatee, which 
some took for a real "calf of the sea," because it 
was grazing on the herbage by the shore. An- 
other gale seemed to be approaching, and they 
moved on to the "port of brasil wood," where 
Ojeda's freebooters had cut their cargo of log- 
wood, and on starting again they were so be- 
calmed that they could not make the coast of 
Jamaica, but drifted to certain sandy banks 
which Columbus called the Wells, because the 
men got water by digging pits on the beach. 
The weather became very bad, but they strug- 
gled on till they reached Jamaica. "There the 
sea became calm," writes the admiral, "but there 
was a strong current that carried me as far as the 
Queen's Garden without seeing land." 

He succeeded in reaching the island of Gua- 
naga in Honduras Bay, sailing in darkness under 
torrents of rain, or driving before the thunder 



33^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

storms. Here they found a people looking like 
Caribs, but with foreheads less compressed. 
There was a forest of pines as tall as those of 
Cuba, and in walking through it the sailors found 
a heap of calamine, or zinc ore, used for making 
brass, which some of them mistook for gold. 
One morning a large trading canoe came along- 
side, making up the gulf with goods from Yuca- 
tan. "It was as large as a galley, eight feet in 
breadth, and all made out of one tree ; in the 
middle was an awning of palmetto leaves, look- 
ing not unlike those of the Venetian gondolas, 
which kept all under it so close that neither rain 
nor sea-water could do any harm. Under the 
awning were the women and children and all the 
goods." There was a crew of twenty-five men, 
says the young Ferdinand, but they had not the 
courage to defend themselves against our boats ; 
and the admiral blessed the Providence that gave 
him samples of all these commodities without 
exposing his men to danger; and he ordered 
such things to be taken as appeared most sightly 
and valuable. There were bright-colored quilted 
stufTs, and painted jerkins, and cotton wrappers 
like those of the Moorish women at Granada. 
There were bundles of swords of a peculiar kind. 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 339 

intended apparently for the Mexican market. 
They were very long, and made of a hard palm 
wood, with channels where the edge should be, 
in which were sharp blades of obsidian fixed 
with fiber and elastic gum, "as good to cut 
naked men as if they were made of steel." Be- 
sides these weapons the Indians had hatchets for 
sale, shaped like the common stone axes, but 
made of brass or hardened copper, with plates 
and bells of the same mixed metal, and molds for 
castings. The provisions for the crew included 
maize and yams and other Indian roots. They 
had a store of cocoa nibs, which the Spaniards 
now saw for the first time, and on these the Indi- 
ans seemed to put a high value for making choc- 
olate, and also as a kind of money, or medium of 
exchange ; and it was noticed that they all 
stooped at once to pick up any of the berries 
that fell down upon the deck; and they had 
maize beer for drink, which looked like bright 
English ale. The men were asked about the 
strait between the two oceans, and seemed to 
know it well. They said that it was close to 
Veragua, not far to the eastward ; but it became 
obvious afterward that they had been speaking 
of an isthmus, and not of a channel from sea to 



34° THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

sea. By a curious freak of imagination, Colum- 
bus thought that he had found the Massagetae 
described by Herodotus, whose savage queen 
had once defeated the Persian armies and given 
Cyrus his "fill of blood." They made much use 
of gold and brass, according to the Father of 
History; "their spears, arrowheads, and battle- 
axes are made of brass ; their helmets, belts, and 
breastplates are adorned with gold ; they tie 
plates of brass on their horses' fronts, and use 
gilded reins and harness." The same description 
recurs in the works of Strabo and Mela, and was 
repeated in the "Cosmography" of Pius the Sec- 
ond, to which Columbus gives a reference. "The 
nation of which Pope Pius writes has now been 
found, to judge by the situation and other signs, 
except indeed the horses with poitrels and 
bridles of gold ; but this is not surprising, be- 
cause the lands on the coast are only inhabited 
by fishermen, and I did not stay there very long, 
being in haste to proceed." 

After leaving Honduras they came to a forest 
land, where the Indians were almost as black as 
negroes, with tattooed skins and ears distended 
so as to hold stones as large as a hen's ^%'g. The 
guide from Honduras called them cannibalSj and 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 341 

Columbus was ready to believe it of people so 
repulsive in their looks. But when Bartholomew 
landed with the other captains to hear mass, and 
again when they were taking possession of the 
country for Spain, the natives came down loaded 
with fat geese, and fowls with woolly crests like 
the hens of Mandeville's Indian travels, with 
roasted fish, and beans, and large, yellow plums, 
and a fruit with a prickly husk like a chestnut. 
The forest seemed to be full of life. The Span- 
iards heard of pumas and jaguars, and saw deer 
of different kinds. The coast swarmed with fish 
of every sort, as it seemed to the travelers, that 
could be found either in Spain or the Indies. The 
natives, for the most part, went naked, but a few 
chiefs wore tunics or short frocks without sleeves, 
and red and white cloths twisted about their 
heads. They all had tattooed skins, "looking 
very odd," as Ferdinand said, "with jaguars or 
deer, or houses and towers painted all over the 
body;" "but when they want to be fine against a 
festival day, their faces are colored black or red : 
some have streaks of several colors, some paint 
their noses and others blacken their eyes, and so 
they adorn themselves to look beautiful, when in 
truth they look like so many devils." 



342 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

For sixty days they tried to make head 
against the Gulf Stream in weather so fierce 
that it seemed "like the end of the world." 
Columbus has recorded that his very soul was 
grieved at the distress of his little son, "though 
he worked as if he had been eighty years 
at sea." "I myself," he added, "had fallen ill, 
and was many times at the point of death, but 
I directed the course from a cabin that I ordered 
them to set up on the deck." In all this time 
they only made seventy leagues, but afterward 
they reached a point where the land trended 
southward and the east wind was no longer such 
a hindrance, "and they all gave thanks to God 
together, for which reason the admiral gave to 
the cape the name of Gracias a Dios." 

The travelers were now in the land of Cariari, 
a region of enchantments, as the Spaniards sup- 
posed, and inhabited by sorcerers of terrible 
power, whose spells they could hardly cast ofT. 
The Indians came down in great numbers, and 
seemed ready to defend their country. Some of 
them were armed with clubs, or bows and arrows, 
and others carried palm-wood spears "as black as 
coal and hard as horn" and tipped with the poi- 
sonous spines of the sting ray. The men, as Fer- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 343 

dinand noted, had their hair braided and twisted 
round their heads; "the women wore it short 
Hke ours." As the Spaniards seemed to be 
peaceful, the natives proposed to trade, and 
brought out weapons, and cotton jackets and 
wrappers, and pieces of the baser kind of gold, 
which they hung upon their necks, as the Span- 
iards wore their medals and relics. Columbus 
was unwilling to take anything from their hands, 
and the Indians, in the same spirit, returned 
all the trinkets that were given to them. Two 
young girls who were brought on board were 
found to have "magic powder" concealed in 
their dress; and at a conference on shore the 
witch doctors threw some of the powder at the 
Spaniards, and blew the smoke of a burning resin 
against them. "They would have given the 
world," said Columbus, "to prevent my remain- 
ing there an hour." On October the 2d he 
directed his brother to visit the Indian town, and 
to find out the secrets of the land ; but the ex- 
plorers found little that was remarkable, except 
a public hall with walls of plaited canes, and 
tombs with embalmed bodies in them, and gilt 
headboards, painted with the likeness of the per- 
sons buried there, or carved into the shapes of 



344 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

animals. An incident which happened as they 
were leaving the coast is interesting as a point of 
natural history, though Columbus seems to have 
regarded it more seriously as a warning of 
strange events. One of the archers had shot an 
"arguato," or "howling monkey," in the woods, 
and the creature was at that time strange to the 
Spaniards, though they soon afterward saw them 
in greater numbers, leaping and swinging among 
the trees. These creatures, according to Hum- 
boldt's description, resemble young bears: "the 
fur is tufty, and reddish brown, and the face 
a blackish blue." The Indians brought two 
peccaries, or wild wood swine as a present ; and 
they were so savage that the admiral's Irish 
hound would not face them; but the "arguato," 
though dreadfully maimed, caught the nearest 
peccary's snout with its prehensile tail, and held 
it like a vise till the boar was completely beaten. 
The young Ferdinand took the monkey for a 
kind of catamount; "it frightened a good dog 
that we had, but frighted one of our wild boars 
a great deal more"; and he notes that it showed 
"how these cats go hunting, like the wolves and 
dogs in Spain." 

Columbus took two of the men of Cariari on 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 345 

board to serve as guides, but the sailors said that 
the ships had no more luck after feeling the 
presence of these accursed necromancers. The 
Indians took them to the Land of Carambaru, 
and the ships sailed between the islands as 
through narrow streets, with the boughs of the 
trees striking the shrouds. The people here all 
went naked, and had golden mirrors and orna- 
ments shaped hke eagles round their necks. 
They offered next to show the Spaniards the 
way to the wonderful country of Ciguare, about 
which they told the most fantastic tales. Not 
only were the people rich in gold, but they wore 
coral necklaces and coronets, and also inlaid their 
chairs and tables with the same material. They 
had fairs and markets, where they traded in pep- 
per from India; they had ships with cannon, and 
the men had rich clothes, and wore swords and 
cuirasses, and rode fine chargers into battle. 
The country was surrounded by the sea, and the 
River Ganges was at a distance of ten days' jour- 
ney. "These lands," says Columbus, "seem to 
have the same bearings compared with Veragua, 
as Pisa has to Venice, or Tortosa to Fontarabia." 
All down the "trade coast" for fifty leagues he 
was shown where the gold mines lay, and the 



346 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

towns where the metal was smelted, of which 
Veragua was the chief. The natives seemed to 
be hostile for the most part, "brandishing their 
spears and blowing conchs and beating drums," 
and using strange incantations; but once or 
twice the Spaniards went ashore and traded. 
When they landed at Catiba they found a multi- 
tude of Indians with their king, "who differed in 
nothing from the rest except that he was covered 
with a large leaf because it was raining hard" ; 
and here, in exchange for a few toys, they pro- 
cured nineteen plates of solid gold. The ad- 
miral, without making any stay, went on to the 
Isthmus of Panama, where he put into a haven 
which he called Porto Bello, "because it is beau- 
tiful and well peopled, and encompassed by a 
well tilled country." The place was full of 
houses a stone's throw or a bowshot apart, 
and it looked, said Ferdinand, like the finest 
landscape that a man could imagine. On the 
9th of November they sailed out of Porto Bello 
eight leagues to the east ; but were soon forced 
back among the islands, near the place where 
Nombre de Dios was afterward built. Here a 
boat's crew chased a canoe, from which the Indi- 
ans leaped out and could not be overtaken; "or, 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 347 

if one were overtaken, he would dive like a duck 
and come up again a bowshot or two away ; and 
this chase was very pleasant, seeing the boat 
labor in vain and come back empty at last." 

The weather had broken by this time, and the 
ships took shelter in the little creek of Retreta, 
about ten leagues east of Porto Bello, "with risk 
and regret"; and on leaving it the storm began 
again, "and wearied me," says Columbus, "so 
that I knew not what to do." "An old wound 
opened, and for nine days I had no hope of life ; 
no eyes ever saw a sea so high and fierce with 
foam." It seemed, he wrote, as if it were a sea 
of blood, seething like a caldron on a mighty fire. 
The sky burned like a furnace, and flamed with 
lightning for a day and a night. When the 
storm abated the ships were followed by a multi- 
tude of sharks; and some thought that they 
boded mischief, because they can 'smell out death 
like ravens ; but they turned out to be very good 
food for the men, who had nothing but biscuit, 
"so full of weevils," said the boy, "that, as God 
shall help me, I saw many that stayed till night 
to eat their sop for fear of seeing them." 

They could hardly keep count of the storms 
that thwarted them on this "Coast of Contradic- 



348 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

tions." If they trimmed their sails for Veragua 
the west wind rushed out against them "Hke a 
man waiting for his enemy." If they made for 
port again, the east wind rose and thrust them 
from shore. At one time the crews were resting 
at the end of a large bay when they made a 
strange discovery. "We went ashore," says Fer- 
dinand, "and saw the people living like birds on 
the tops of the trees, laying sticks across from 
bough to bough and building their huts upon 
them ; and, though we knew not the reason of the 
custom, we guessed that it was done for fear of 
their enemies, or of the griffins that are in this 
land." The last words seem to contain a refer- 
ence to the admiral's new theory that they had 
found a Scythian people belonging to the north- 
ern parts of Asia. 

When the new year began, all hopes of finding 
the strait were abandoned. Columbus now be- 
came anxious to see the mines of which he had 
heard so much when he was skirting the shores 
of Costa Rica. Arriving at a river near Veragua, 
he named it Bethlehem, because they landed 
there on the Feast of the Epiphany, and pre- 
pared to establish a small settlement there, leav- 
ing Don Bartholomew in comnaand while he 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 349 

returned home for supplies. An exploring party 
went up to Veragua and found a large, open 
town, like the straggling villages in Biscay. 
They were hospitably received by Ouibio, or 
"the Quibian," as they called the lord of the dis- 
trict, and were taken up to a mountain, where 
the gold lay on the surface or entangled among 
the roots of the trees. This "Quibian" was 
showing the riches of a country belonging to his 
enemies; but it turned out that there were mines 
in his own district where a man might collect in 
a few days "as much ore as a child could carry." 
The admiral remembered the saying of Josephus 
that the treasure of the Temple had been 
brought from a golden peninsula a few days' 
journey from India, and he felt sure that he had 
found this rich region at Veragua, where he saw 
more signs of gold in two days than in all the 
years in which they had known Hispaniola. "I 
think more," he wrote, "of this opening for 
trade, and the lordship over these great mines, 
than of anything else in the Indies ; and this, 
indeed, is such a son as must not be left to the 
care of a stepmother," 

The natives seemed to lead an easy life. The 
chiefs strutted in fine robes and feather crowns 



35° THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

braided with gold. They did Httle but chew 
cocoa paste, "mixing a powder with the leaf in a 
singular fashion," and their followers chewed 
another leaf which made their teeth very black. 
They had little game or venison, but plenty of 
grain, roots, and fruit of many kinds, and a great 
variety of liquors. They made one kind of wine 
from the pineapple and another from the peach- 
like "mamee," and had drink brewed from palm 
nuts, besides the sharp and brisk maize beer and 
the cider-like "pulque" from the aloe. Their 
chief business was to lay in stores of baked fish, 
which they prepared with wonderful patience, 
wrapping it up in dry leaves "as apothecaries do 
with their drugs." For the large fish they made 
hook and bait in one out of turtle shell, which 
they cut by sawing it up and down with a fiber; 
and they had seines for the shoals in the bays 
and contrivances of mat work and netting for the 
swarms of fry. The flying fish were mostly 
taken at the mouths of rivers with canoes fitted 
up with palmetto screens, against which the fish 
leaped when the water was beaten with paddles. 

A few houses were built for those who were to 
stay behind, and a scanty store of provisions was 
placed out of reach of danger. Columbus him- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 35 1 

self was getting ready for sea, though his three 
available ships were leaky and worm-eaten, and as 
full of holes as a honeycomb. It was suddenly 
discovered that the Indian chief was preparing to 
massacre the settlers as soon as the fleet had 
sailed, and the admiral determined as a counter- 
stroke to carry him off with all his wives to 
Spain. Don Bartholomew captured "the Quib- 
ian" with his own hands after a desperate strug- 
gle, and he was carried down to the boat with his 
wives and children and principal followers. 
Their captivity was of short duration. The in- 
domitable Indian, though shackled hand and 
foot, plunged overboard and dived to the shore ; 
some of the other prisoners burst open the ship's 
hatches and swam to land through the surf, and 
the rest hanged themselves in the hold, though 
the beams were so low that their feet and knees 
were dragging on the floor. 

The settlement at Bethlehem was at once 
attacked. Accounts of the fighting have come 
down to us from Don Ferdinand, and from the 
brave Diego Mendez, who afterward carried a 
message from Jamaica to Hispaniola in a frail 
native canoe. Their stories are full of a frolic 
humor and a gay courage in face of death ati4 



352 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

disaster. The first that they knew about the 
assault was a sudden shout at their doors, and 
the javeHns coming through the thatch. Don 
Bartholomew, they said, ran out at once with his 
spear and laid about him, and the Indians danced 
to and fro with their darts, like the picadors at a 
bullfight; they ran forward to cast, and then 
rushed back, as the young men do at home when 
they tilt with the bulrush spears. But they soon 
made for the woods when they felt the edge of 
the Spanish swords and the teeth of the Irish 
wolf dog. One comical fellow, says Ferdinand, 
ran straight back into the house. "This way, this 
way, Sebastian !" cried Mendez. "Where are you 
off now, in such a hurry?" "Let me be," said 
the sailor in his Italian : '' Lasciarmi andar, Dia- 
volo ! I am going to put myself away." They 
laughed again at the pedantry of Diego Tristan, 
who was on the river close by with two boats' 
crews, and who would not join in the fight for fear 
of losing part of his force. The battle ended 
with an advance of the picked warriors armed with 
heavy palm-wood clubs; "but none of them got 
home," says Mendez, "for with our swords we 
cut off their arms and legs." Next day the aus- 
tere Diego Tristan went up the river to get water 



TliE CAREER OP COLUMBUS. 3^j 

for the fleet, and came to a terrible end. His 
boats were in a bend of the stream between 
woods too thick for a landing, when they were 
surrounded by a fleet of canoes with four or five 
Indians in each, and every man of the crews was 
killed, except one who dived to the shore and 
made his way home through the forest. "The 
Indians took the boats and broke them to 
pieces," says Mendez, "and this caused us much 
vexation, for the admiral was at sea without 
boats, and we were on shore deprived of the 
means of going to him." "We were all in the 
same trouble and confusion," as Don Ferdinand 
wrote from the ship, "as those who were left on 
land." The admiral, he adds, was lying in an 
open roadstead, with very few men ; and those 
on shore, "seeing the bodies drift down, covered 
with wounds, and followed by swooping and 
screaming crows," took it as a bad omen, and 
feared the same end for themselves. They ac- 
cordingly abandoned the village and encamped 
upon the open beach, making a shift to defend 
themselves behind casks and boxes. The Indi- 
ans were gathering in great strength, and the 
woods were full of the noise of their conchs and 
drums; "but we had two good brass falconets 



35 4 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

with plenty of powder and ball, with which we 
frightened them off." The admiral, as it turned 
out, had one boat left, and after some days he 
succeeded in sending a message ashore by one 
Peter Ledesma, a man of gigantic strength, who 
was rowed within a short distance from land, and 
then plunged and swam through the surf. The 
party on shore were taken off on a raft, their 
ship being useless, and the little fleet set out 
once more toward Porto Bello, where Columbus 
was forced to abandon one of the three remain- 
ing vessels, "being all worm-eaten through and 
through." 

In the Jamaica letter, Columbus records the 
agony of mind in which he abandoned his golden 
dreams. He was almost alone, outside the Beth- 
lehem River, consumed by a raging fever, and 
worn out by fatigue. "All hope of escape was 
gone. I toiled up to the highest part of the 
ship, and with quavering voice called on your 
Highnesses' war captains to come from the four 
quarters of the heavens to succor me, but there 
was no reply, and I fell asleep lamenting, and 
heard the voice of compassion"; and these were 
the concluding words which he heard or seemed 
to hear: "Fear not, but trust; all these tribula- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 355 

tions are graven in the rock, and not without 
cause." On this the weather had cleared, and he 
was able to rescue his men. He would have 
remained to defend the fort, but he doubted 
whether any ships would ever again come that 
way, and his action was decided by the thought 
that he might help himself, instead of waiting 
for help from others. On May lo, 1504, they 
arrived at the Queen's Garden, about ten leagues 
from Cuba, or as Columbus thought, "at the 
province of Mango, next to Cathay"; they were 
battered by storms, and lost almost all their 
tackle, and the crews were almost dead with fear. 
The two ships collided and all but sank, the 
water rising nearly to the decks, though all hands 
were at the pumps and baling with pans and ket- 
tles. "My vessel," says the admiral, "was on 
the very point of sinking, when the Lord miracu- 
lously brought us to land. Who will believe 
what I write? I say that in this letter I have 
not told the hundredth part of the wonders that 
happened on the voyage." 

They saved themselves by putting into a har- 
bor on the coast of Jamaica, "but though good 
enough as a shelter in a storm," the port had no 
fresh water in its neighborhood, and they could 



35^ THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

not see any Indian village. "We made the best 
shift that we could," says Ferdinand, "and 
moved eastward to another harbor, called Santa 
Gloria, which was inclosed by rocks on three 
sides; and having now got in, and being no 
longer able to keep the ships above water, we ran 
them ashore as far as we could, stranding them 
close together, board to board, and shoring them 
up so that they could not budge; and in this 
posture the water came up almost to the decks, 
upon which, and upon the poops and forecastles, 
sheds were made for the men to lie in, to secure 
themselves against the Indians." They had 
come to their last ration of biscuit and wine, but 
the natives were peaceable, and brought in 
plenty of food. "The Indians sold us two little 
creatures like rabbits for a piece of tin, and cakes 
of bread for a few glass beads, and when they 
brought a good store they had a hawk's bell, and 
sometimes we gave a great man a little looking- 
glass, or a red cap or pair of scissors, to please 
them." There was a danger, however, that this 
peaceful state of things might come to an end, 
and Columbus was anxious to let his position be 
known in Hispaniola. We have a record of his 
conversation with Diego Mendez, who was now 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 35^ 

his chief secretary. The admiral, says Mendez, 
called me aside, and spoke of his peril, address- 
ing me as follows: "Diego Mendez, my son, not 
one of those who are here has any idea of our 
great danger, except myself and you, for we are 
but few in number, and these wild Indians are 
numerous, and very fickle and capricious; and 
whenever they may take it into their heads to 
come and burn us in these two ships, which we 
have turned into straw-thatched cottages, they 
may easily do so by setting fire to them on the 
land side, and will so destroy us all." He then 
proposed that Mendez should make his way to 
Hispaniola in a canoe, and should buy a ship and 
stores at the admiral's cost. The secretary 
doubted if success were possible, but finally 
agreed to make the attempt. The admiral, he 
said, rose and embraced him, kissing him on the 
cheek, and saying, "Well did I know that there 
was no one here but yourself who would dare to 
undertake the enterprise." After one failure, in 
which he nearly lost his life, Mendez succeeded 
in reaching the colony, where he found Ovando 
engaged in the campaign against Xaragua. "He 
kept me with him," said Mendez, "until he had 
burned or hanged eighty-four Caciques, and with 



35 8 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

them Anacoana, the principal lady of the island; 
and when that expedition was over I went on 
foot to San Domingo, and waited there till the 
storeships should come from Spain." In the 
course of the spring, three vessels sailed in 
together; and Mendez bought one of them 
on the admiral's account, and sent her off to 
Jamaica, well supplied with meat and biscuit. 

During the year which Columbus spent at 
Santa Gloria he was confronted by troubles of all 
kinds. The Indians became tired of supplying 
food, "being a people," said Don Ferdinand, 
"that takes little pains in sowing, and we eating 
more in one day than they did in twenty" ; but 
their childish minds seem to have been subdued 
by the admiral's prediction of an eclipse "with 
an angriness and color of blood in the moon," 
since they believed that such eclipses had always 
brought disaster upon them. Only one short 
message had been received from Hispaniola in 
answer to his demand for assistance. A small 
caravel put into the port one evening with a 
dispatch from Mendez and a curt message from 
the governor of the colony, who regretted that 
he had no ships ready for the relief of the ship- 
wrecked crews. The captain handed down a 



The career of columbus. 359 

Cask of wine and two sides of bacon as a compli- 
ment, and, having received a letter for Ovando, 
went back that same night. His sailors had 
been forbidden to speak to anyone on shore, and 
there was an air of mystery about the whole 
transaction. Columbus endeavored to make the 
best of the case, declaring that ships would be 
sent to carry them all away, but many of his fol- 
lowers persuaded themselves that he had prac- 
ticed an illusion, and that "this was no true cara- 
vel, but a phantom of that black art in which the 
admiral was well skilled." They had long been 
convinced of his supernatural powers, thinking 
that his "rough magic" had raised the great 
storm in which his enemies had perished at His- 
paniola, as though he were the master of such 
powers as he who cried : 

I have bedimmed 
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, 
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault 
Set roaring war. 

This idea seems to have influenced the pro- 
ceedings of the mutineers, who did not dare to 
attack the admiral themselves, though they con- 
tinually incited the Indians to kill him. At the 
beginning of the year 1504, Francisco de Porras, 
one of the ship's captains, had broken into open 



366 THE CAREER OF COLUMStfS. 

rebellion. He took command of a band of fifty 
mutineers, and insisted that Columbus should 
take them home. "What is the meaning, my 
lord, that you will not go to Spain, but keep us 
all perishing here?" He demanded that they 
should all be embarked at once, crying out, "I 
am going to Spain with all who will follow me," 
and his men began to shout, "We will all go with 
you!" or "Death! death !" and "Spain ! Spain !" 
They possessed themselves, says Ferdinand, of 
the forecastle, poop, and roundtops, all in confu- 
sion. The admiral was in bed, so ill of the gout 
that he could not stand. "Yet he could not for- 
bear rising and stumbling out at this noise; but 
two or three of his servants laid hold of him, and 
with much trouble put him on his bed that the 
rebels might not murder him. They then ran to 
his brother, who had courageously come out with 
a half-pike in his hand, and thrust him in to the 
admiral, desiring Porras to go about his business, 
and not do a mischief that they might suffer for. 
The desperadoes went off with the canoes which 
Columbus had been collecting, and lived upon 
what they could take from the Indians, "waiting 
for fair weather and destroying the country." 
After several vain attempts to pass over to His- 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 3^1 

paniola, they came back to the neighborhood of 
Santa Gloria, where Don Bartholomew went out 
with about an equal force to meet them. The 
rebels, thinking themselves to be the stronger 
party, charged in a body, with shouts of "Slay! 
slay !" Six of their best men, including the 
gigantic Ledesma, and Sanchez, who had been the 
first to draw his sword on the admiral's deck, 
were banded together under an oath to kill Don 
Bartholomew. "If he were killed," they said, 
"they would make no account of the rest." But 
Bartholomew fell on them so fiercely that most 
of their picked men were killed in the first 
charge. Porras himself was taken prisoner ; San- 
chez was among the killed, and Ledesma was 
found at the foot of a rock from which he had 
fallen, with a crowd of Indians round him, 
amazed at his desperate wounds. The other 
rebels soon afterward came in, and bound them- 
selves with many vows to do their duty in the 
future. 

The admiral's ship, with a caravel lent by 
Ovando, arrived a few days afterward, "and on 
the 28th of June, 1504," says Ferdinand, "we 
proceeded with much diflficulty, the winds and 
currents being very contrary, and arrived at San 



362 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

Domingo on the 13th of August in great need of 
rest." 

The letter which Columbus wrote from Ja- 
maica in the previous year expresses the sense of 
disappointment and defeat that darkened the 
close of his life. "The honesty of my service 
and these unmerited affronts would not let my 
soul be silent, if I wished it, I pray your High- 
nesses' pardon. I am lost, as I have already 
said. For others I have wept before ; but now 
let Heaven have mercy upon me, and let the 
whole earth weep !" 

His son describes the final troubles of the voy- 
age. Of their two ships, one had soon to put 
back, but the other pressed forward through a 
terrible storm. On the 19th of October, the 
weather being fair, the mainmast split into four 
pieces; but they managed to rig up a jury-mast, 
though the admiral could not rise from his bed 
to direct them. The foremast went soon after- 
ward, but crippled as they were, they managed to 
sail for seven hundred leagues, and arrived on 
the 7th of November at the harbor of San Lucar, 

While Columbus was at his old home in 
Seville, he heard of the good queen's death. He 
writes sadly to his son Diego, grieving at the loss 



THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. Z^l 

of his protector and best friend : "We trust that 
she rests in glory, far from all care for this rough 
and weary world." Columbus made repeated 
applications for the arrears due to his men, and 
the restitution of his dignities. He could get no 
answer of any kind. King Ferdinand had as- 
sumed the regency, but he had no real power to 
control the revenues of Castile, and his mind was 
engrossed in the attempt to postpone his daugh- 
tisr's accession. In the spring of i 505 Columbus 
had an audience at Segovia, and followed the 
court from that time, pleading for his rights, and 
offering to serve the State again, "though the 
gout was working him without mercy." He was 
always received with the same cold politeness. 
The restitution of his dignities was delayed, and 
all questions of revenue were referred to a tedi- 
ous arbitration, though Columbus was fast sink- 
ing into poverty. He was pressed to exchange 
his claims for an estate and a pension in Castile, 
"the Indies showing daily more and more what 
they were like to be, and how great would be the 
admiral's share." Columbus wrote that, if the 
king would not keep his word, it Avas useless to 
contend with him. "I have done all that I 
could, and I leave the rest to God," There was 



364 THE CAREER OF COLUMBUS. 

one last gleam of hope when he heard that Philip 
and Juana had landed, Don Bartholomew car- 
ried a letter to Corunna, tending the admiral's 
homage, and offering to do such service as the 
world had never seen. A few days afterward all 
hope was gone. The disease that had so long 
oppressed Columbus took a sudden turn for the 
worse, and he died in the inn at Valladolid upon 
Ascension Day, the 2ist of May, 1506. He was 
buried in that city in the Church of Santa Maria 
la Antigua ; but his body was removed six years 
afterward to Seville, and King Ferdinand built 
him a tomb, in which his remains rested for a 
time before their removal to the Indies. "An 
epitaph," writes his son, "was cut upon the tomb 
in Spanish, and the words were these : 'A Cas- 
tilia y a Leon, Nuevo mundo did Colon' : words 
well worth observing, because the like cannot be 
found either among the ancients or the mod- 
erns." 



INDEX. 



Acacia, 318 

Acunha, Trisdan d', 78 
Adam of Bremen, 131, 161, 201 
Adelantado, Office of, 313 
^thicus, Cosmography of, 42, 

94, 172 
Agouti, 245, 304 
Aguado, Juan, 315-16 
Ailly, Pierre d', 133 
Albania, 163, 173 
Albisola, Orbisola, 7, 17 
Alciati, 36 
Alexander the Great, 162, 173- 

4, 176 
Alexander the Merchant, 129 
Alfragan, 130 
Almadia, 210, 243 
Aloes, 20, 58, 290, 292, 350 
Alto Velo, 310 
Amaricus, 131 
Amazons, Isle of, 161, 265, 

268, 287 
Amber, 59, 127, 220, 303, 316 
Amico, Antonio de, 26 
Anacoana, 300, 305, 330, 358 
Andalusia, 231, 279, 284 
Angelfish, 152 



Antilla, 107, 115, 136, 157 

Antigua, 293 

Antipodes-, 32, 124 

Antwerp, Trade of, 59 

Arabia, 155 

Arana, Family of, 225, 327 

Archangel, 194 

Archers, English, 202, 265, 342 

Indian, 294, 297, 306, 242 

Archil, Orchilla, 100, loi 
Arctic Circle, 121, 131, 133, 

140, 151, 155, 165 
Arguato, 344 
Arguin Island, 112 
Aristotle, 43,45, 108,116, 118, 

125 
Arngrim, The Learned, 167-8 

i6g 
Assegai, 221 
Astrachans, 58 
Astrolabe, 219 
Atalanta, 117 
Atlantis, 109, 117 
Attila Lay, 177 
Azores, 105-8, 118, 158-9, 207 

-II, 230, 267, 271-2, 275, 

281, 283, 326 
Azumbaja, 2ig 



365 



366 



INDEX. 



B 
Babeque {see Jamaica), 256, 258, 

305 
Bacon, Francis, 188, igi 
Bacon, Roger, 95, 133 
Bahama Bank, 276 
Baltic, 50, 155, 161 
Baldo, 31, 36 
Bambothus River, 113 
Bantry Bay, 191 
Barbadoes, 115 
Barbary, trade of, 60 
Barcelona, 2S2-6, 292 
Bardson, Ivor, 182 
Battles — 

Bethlehem River, 351 

Brest, 50 

Cape St. Vincent (1470), 

57. 71-74 

Cape St. Vincent (1485)^ 
12, 57, 72-3 

Cyprus, 57 

Genoa, 46 

Guinegette, 50 

Navidad, 296-7 

Ravenna, 78 

Rif, 149-50 

Samana, 265, 295 

Santa Cruz, 293 

Santa Gloria, 361 

Santa Maria, 271 

Stamford, 67 

Tunis, 55-6 

Vega, 314-15 

Viverro, 50, 52-5 
Bavarello, Giacomo, 22, 30 
Beccaria, Antonio de, 116 
Bede, The Venerable, 325 



Beer, 200, 323, 339, 350 
Behaim, Martin, 219 
Behemoth, 43, 113 
Bellini, Gentile, 77 
Benin, 207 

Bergen, 146, 149, 153, 184 
Bernadigio, Antonio di, 44 
Bernardo of Sestri, 18 
Bethancourt, 96 
Bethlehem, River, 34S-54 
Bissagos, Islands, 113 
Bjarney, or Disco Island, 179, 

183 
Bjorn of Scardsa, 178-9 
Bjorn Thorleifsson, 149, 165-6 
Bjorn Heriulf's Son, 169 
Blue Mountains, 306, 309-10 
Bogliasco, 7 
Bohio, Hispaniola (see Hispan- 

iola), 249, 254, 256-9 
Bojador, Cape, 97-8, 112 
Bona Vista, 209 
Booby, Gannet, 102-3, 233 
Bobadilla, 329, 331, 336 
Book of Prophecies, 324 
Bovadilla, The Huntress, 208 
Boverio Family, 26 
Bracciforti, 87 
Brasil wood, 299, 316, 337 
Bressay, 191 

Bristol, 138, 141, 149-51 
Bruges, Trade of, 59 
Bryniulf of Skalholt, 165 
Burgos, 318 

C 
Cadamosto, 100 
Cadiz, 57, 109, 117, 119, 123, 

154, 286-7 



IJVDEJC. 



367 



Calais, 20, 149'' 

Calamine, 328 

Camara dos Lobos, 93, 96 

Canary Isles, 96, 101-4, 114, 

127, 207, 215, 229, 256, 

266, 272, 287 
Candia, 19, loi 
Cannibals, i6r, 201-3, 255, 266, 

287, 291, 294, 298, 311, 

340-41 
Canoes, West Indian, 210, 261, 

306, 309-11, 322, 328, 

346-7, 350, 353. 357. 360 
Canynge, William, 149 
Caonabo, 297-300, 302-3, 313, 

317 

Cape Coast Castle, 216, 219 

Cape Verde Islands, 114, 129, 
208-10, 225, 235 

Capiscum, 217, 305 

Caramansa, 220-1 

Carambaru, 346 

Cariari, 342-5 

Caribs, 205, 289-90, 297, 313, 
320, 328, 335, 338 

Carthage, 39, 97, 107-9, ii4. 
208 

Casenove, Coulon {see Colum- 
bus) 

Caspian Sea, 163, 173, 176 

Cassava, 257, 260, 292, 328 

Cassia, 316 

Catalina, the Indian, 316 

Cathay, 3, 107, 135-6, 156, 
228, 237, 277, 359 

Catiba, 346 

Cattigara, 83, 129 

Cazel, Robert de, 49 



Ceiba-tree, 254, 291 
Chariot of the Gods, 113 
Charles the Bold, 50, 54, 65-7 
Charles the Eighth of France, 

72 
Cibao, 262, 297-302, 316 
Ciguare, 345 

Ciguayo Indians, 215, 265 
Cinnamon, 20, 40, 58, 122, 

290 
Cipango (Japan), 99, 107, 134, 

136, 157, 237, 249, 262 
Clear, Cape, 158 
Cloves, 122, 289 
Coca, 350 
Cocoa, 329, 350 
Cod-fishery, 140-r, 152, 198 
Coffer-fish, 257 
Colombi, of Cogoletto,7,9,io,i6 

of Corsica, 9, 17-18 

of Cuccaro, 10 

of Montferrat and 

cenza, lo-ii 
Colombo, Giovanni, 327 

of Oneglia, 13, 17-18 

Colombo of Terra-Rossa, 

24 

de Terra-rubea, 24 

Antonio, 24 

Bortolomeo {see Columbus) 

Battestina, 25 

Biancinetta, 18, 22, 30 

Cristoforo {see Columbus) 

Domenico, 10, 24-9, 327 

Giacomo {see Columbus) 

Giovanni, 24-5 

Giovanni- Pelegrino, 18, 28 

Susanna(j-i?<f Fontanarossa) 



Pia- 



15, 



368 



INDEX. 



Columbus, Bartholomew — 

born at Quinto, i8 

journey to England, 

312 

appointed Adelan- 

tado, 313 

in Hispaniola, 305, 

313, 327-8 

arrest of, 332-3 

voyage to Honduras, 

335-6, 340 

at Veragua, 349-50 

in Jamaica, 361-2 

at Corunna, 364 

Columbus, Christopher — 

his family, 3- 1 7, 24-30, 

87. 327 
his father and mother, 10, 

15-18, 24-30, 327 
at Genoa, 21, 46 
at Pavia, 31-9, 43-5 
at Savona, 17, 26-7, 48 
at Porto Santo, 106, 206 
serves with privateers, 
48, 52, 56-8, 70-4 
Mediterranean voyages, 5, 
17, 47-8,106 

to the Azores, 106, 207, 

210-11 
Canaries, 207 
Cape Verde Islands, 208-9 
English Channel, 67-8 
North Sea, 71, 106, 150-5, 

205 
Arctic Circle, 5, 138-40, 

150-2 
Senegambia and Guinea, 
207, 212-20 



Columbus, Christopher — loin'd. 
at Lisbon, 47, 73-4, 81-2, 

85-90, 134, 273 
marries Philippa Moniz, 

87-90 
his portraits, 76-81 
settles in Spain, 225-7 
Beatrix Enriquez, 225 
First Voyage to West Indies, 
103, 215-16, 227-66 
return by the Azores, 
267-73 
Second voyage, 39, 71, 102, 

120, 286 
Third voyage to Paria, 320-5 
his arrest and return, 
331-2 
Fourth voyage, 335-62 
at Honduras, 337-41 
in Veragua, 346-54 
flight to Jamaica, 356-62 
final return, 362 
last illness and death, 
363-4 
Columbus, Diego — 

Christopher's eldest son, 

91, 226, 362 
at Porto Santo and Ma- 
deira, 106, 206 
at Cordova, 270 
makes payments at Sa- 
vona and Lisbon, 28-85 
sees beginning of second 

voyage, 287 
his last will, 90 
Columbus, Ferdinand — 

son of Beatrix Enri- 
quez, 225 



INDEX. 



369 



Columbus, Ferdinand — cont'd. 
at Cordova, 270 
Conversations with the 
Admiral, 4-5, 33, 73, 
128-41 
writes on pedigree of 
Columbi, 6, 7, 9-10, 
12-14 
Essay on the Zones, 139 
on battles at Cape St. 

Vincent, 12, 72-4 
on his father's marriage, 

90 
on Carthaginian voy- 
ages, 117-19 
on early life of Colum- 
bus, 103-4, 134-5, 159, 
193 
on the first expedition, 

229, 285 
sees second fleet start, 

286 
his adventures on the 
fourth voyage, 325-61 
Columbus, Giacomo (Don 
Diego) — 
born at Genoa, 18 
voyage to Hispaniola,28 
in command of fleet, 302 
President of Council, 

304, 312 
sent back to Spain, 331 
Columbus, French Vice-Admi- 
ral — Coulon de Casenove, 
13, 14. 48-55, 62, 70 
his family, 49, 51 
services under Louis the 
Eleventh, 49-50 



Columbus, (Coulon de Case- 
nove) cont'd. 
his action at Viverro, 50, 52-5 
imprisoned, 62 
Columbus the Younger — 
Nicolo Griego, or Colombo, 
12, 13, 48-9, 51, 55-7, 
64-5, 68-73 
known as Pirate Colombo, 13 
in English Channel, 65, 67-70 
at Cape St. Vincent (1470), 

71-74 
off Cape St. Vincent (1477), 

71, 154 
takes Flanders galleys (1485), 

12, 57, 72 
his action off Cyprus, 57 
Como, 7, 77 
Concepcion Island, 244, 276-7 

(see Guanima) 
Copenhagen, 149, 165 
Copper, 291, 303, 316, 339 
Coral, 243, 276, 293, 345 
Cordova, 226, 259, 270 
Correa, Pedro, 90, 92, 104, 207, 

211 
Corsica, 9, 17 
Corunna, 364 
Cosa, Juan de la, 234-6, 282, 

284, 328 
Cosmas, 43 
Costa Rica, 348 
Cotton, 242-4, 249, 253-5, 315, 

343 
Crab, various species of, 103, 

232, 246, 305 
Crane, 307 
Crato, Prior of, 280 



37^ 



INDEX. 



Crayfish, 253 
Crispi, Alberto di, 45 
Cristofano dell* Altissimo, 79 
Cuba, 211- 13, 250-8, 264, 

276-8, 355 {see Juana) 
Cubagua, 324 
Cuccaro, 10, 11 
Cuneo, Corrado di, 28 
Cyprus, 19, 57 

D 

Dsedalus, 196 

Dartmouth, 69-70, 265 

Decio, Filippo, 37 

Degree, measure of, 130-1, 

139-40 
Denmark, 140, 149, 16S, 185 
Desertas, 99 
Dicuil, 131 
Diodorus Siculus, 39, 44, 108, 

no, 120, 174 
Diogenes, voyage of, 128 
Disco Island, 179, 183 
Dittmar Blefken, 168 
Dog- faced Tribes, 161, 255 
Dogs, Indian, 245, 252, 291 

Irish, 344, 352 

Majorcan, 314 

Dominica, 288, 335 
Dorado, 235 
Dragon's Blood, 93 
Dragon's Mouth, 320-r, 324 
Dragon-tree, 92-4 
Drift-ice, 132, 142-3, 152, 190 
Drogio, 191, 201-3 

E 

Eaglewood, 248, 255 



Ebony, 303, 316 
Edward the Fourth of Eng- 
land, 65-6. 70, 218 
Elmina, 218-19, 222-3 {^^^ St. 

George's Fort) 
Emperor-fish, 235 
England — 

negotiations with Columbus, 

2, 24, 312 
trade with Genoa, 19, 59 

Iceland, 139, 140, 

150-51, 165-6 

■ Norway, 153-5 

Venice, 56-61,63-6 

Wars of the Roses, 66-70 
Wool Trade of, 20, 59-60, 
149 
English Fleet at Calais, 67 

at Havre, 69 

at Dartmouth, 70-1 

Enriquez, Beatrix, 225 

Eric the Red, 163-72, 174-9, 

181 
Esdras, Book of, 41, 43 
Eskimo, 173, 175, 184 
Estotiland, 191, 199-204 
Etna, Mount, 209 
Eudoxus, voyage of, 97 
Eugenius the Fourth, 135, 184 
Euphorbia, 248 

Exuma 244-6, 277 {see Fer- 
nandina) 



Faroe Isles, 132, 140, 164, 190, 

198-205 
Fata Morgana, 212 
Faventia, Stefano di, 44 



INDEX. 



371 



Fayal, 157, 211 

Ferdinand of Arragon, 47,71-2, 

76, 281, 318-19, 363-4 
Ferdinand and Isabella, 2-3, 
34, 226-8, 238, 282 
at Barcelona, 282-4 
letters from, 254, 315, 332 
letters to, 215-16, 228-9, 
260-2, 269-70, 309, 304-5, 
362 
Ferdinand of Sicily, 52-5 
Ferdinandina, La, 55-6 
Fernandina Exuma, 244-6 
Ferrariis, Theophilus de, 116 
Ferreri, Giovanni, 24 
Ferro, 208, 210, 230, 236, 267, 

319 
Fisheries — 

Icelandic, 140, 147-9 

Lofoden, 15 1-2 

Faroese, 198 

Scotch herring, 140 

West Indian, 246-7, 350 
Fisherman, Story of the, 197- 

205 
Flaccus, Septimius, 128 
Flamingo, 307, 316 
Flanders Galleys, 19, 57-61, 63- 

6, 70-4. 154 
Flatey Book, 164-8, 179 
Flitting Islands, 211-12 
Flores, 157-8 
Flying fish, 237-8, 350 
Fogo, 209, 320 
Fontana-Rossa, 15 

family of, 15-16, 26 

Susanna, mother of 

Columbus, 15-17,28-9 



Fortuna,- the Infante, 285 
Fortunate Isles, 114, 120, 174 
Fox grape, 163 

Frankincense, 127, 248, 303 
Freydisa, 177-9 
Frigate bird, 235, 288 
Frisland, 139, 188-90, 198 
Fritalo, Giovanni di, 25 
Frobisher, Martin, 185, 190 
Frozen Sea, 233 
Funchal, 94, 206 
Furtada, Beatrix, 90 

Caterina, 90 

Iseult, Hizeu, 90, 104 

G 
Gallo, Antonio, 82 
Garcia, Ruy, 271 
Gaza, The^ore, 217 
Genoa, home of Columbus, 2, 

7-11, 17, 25-6, 46-7, 225 

description, 20-24 

Black Sea trade, 47 

Olive Gate, at, 21 

St. Andrew's Gate, 8, 18, 

21, 26, 30 

spice trade, 16, 20, 47 

trade with Lisbon, 82, 

86 
weaving trade, 21, 23, 

291 

early voyages from, 96 

George of Trebizond, 217 

Ginestreto, 22, 24 

Giovio, Paolo, 38, 77-82, 201 

Girardi, 134 

Giulio Romano, 78 

Giustiniani, 6, 82 



3?2 



iMdex. 



Gold, discovery of, 217, 254, 
297, 300-3, 305-6, 315- 
16, 329-30, 338, 343 

Gold mines, 257, 262, 278, 

345-9 
Gold ornaments, 221, 243-4, 

247, 249-50, 260-61, 316, 

323, 340, 345, 349 
Gold Coast, 207, 216, 219 
Golden Chersonese, 43, 129, 

307 
Gomera, 20S, 210-11, 229, 241, 

287 
Gorbolan, 300-1 
Gorgon Islands, 115 
Gorillas, 113 

Gracias a Dios, Cape, 342 
Graciosa, 207 
Grain Coast, 216-17 <t 
Granada, 2, 228, 333, 338 
Greenland — 

Bishops of, 183-5^ 

193 

invasion by Eskimos, 

184-5 

Norwegian settle- 
ments in, 144-6, 161-2, 
1 8 1-3, 204-5 

• the voyages to Vin- 

land, 162-5, 169-81 

voyage of the Zeni, 

188-93,194, 197-200,204 

Griego, family, 51 (see Colum- 
bus) 
Griffins, 163, 348 
Guacanagiri, 261, 298 
Guadaloupe, 289-9I, 317 
Quanaga Island, 337 



Guanahani, 240-1, 276-7 {see 

Watlings Island) 
Gaunches, 208 
Guanima Islands, 244, 276-7, 

{see Concepcion and Rum 
Cay) 
Guardafui, Cape, 128 
Guards, Islands, 324 
Guarionex, 215, 296-8, 313, 329 
Guevara, Hernando de, 330-1 
Guinea Coast 5, 212-34, 253, 

274 
Gulf Stream, 105-6, 342 
Gulf weed, 103-5, 231-4, 236- 

7, 265-6, 288 

H 

Hair, mode of dressing, 215, 

242, 290, 323, 343 
Hake and Hekia, 180 
Halibut, 152, 182-3 
Hammocks, 245, 253-5, 291 
Hanno, 112, 120 
Hanse League, 141, 153 
Hayna, La, 316, 332 
Hawk's Book, 178-9 
Hecla, Mount, 187, 194 
Heimskringla, 167 
Helena, meteor of, 289 
Helluland, 170, 180 
Heriulf's Ness, 169-70 
Henry the Seventh, 72, 155, 

312 
Henry the Navigator, 97, 113, 

157, 221, 224, 279 
Herodotus, 43, 340 
Hesperides, 107, 114-15 
Hesperus, 1 13-14, 115 



iNDEiC. 



%1% 



Higuey, 2io, 298 
Hispaniola — 

building of La Navidad. 
262-4 

of Isabella, 299-300 

of San Domingo, 327, 

331 
civil wars in, 327-31 
conquest of, 312-15 
dialects in, 214-15 
discovery of, 116-17, 259-60, 

276-7 
foundation of colony, 286-7, 

299 
hurricanes at, 316, 329, 336-8 
last visit of Columbus, 359 
mastic-trees in, 47 
Mendez, visit of, 351, 356-8 
pine forests, 211 
return of Columbus to,3io-ii 
shape of, 123 

skirmish at Samana, 265-6 
spices found in, 216-17, 316 
{see Bohio) 
Himilco, 108 
Historia Scholastica, 325 
Hogfish, 246 

Honduras Bay, 327-8, 340-1 
Honeydew, 174, 176 
Hot springs, 192-4 
Houses, West Indian, 248, 252, 
255, 291, 294, 323, 343, 
346-8 
Huelva, 90, 225, 273, 318 
Hull, 149 
Hundred-league line, 230, 281, 

317. 326 
Hyrcania, 163, 172-4, 176 



lambulus, 120 
Icaria, 195-7 {see Kerry) 
Iceblink, Mountain, 182 
Iceland, taken for Thule, 131-3, 

138-40, 154 
confused with Shetland, 

189 
English trade with, 138- 

51, 165-6 

calendar used in, 143-4, 151 

literature of, 165-9, ^77~9 

Ireland, 124, 158-9, 181, 193, 

195 

Greater, 173, 181 

Isabella, Queen, 215, 227, 244, 

256, 315-18,323,328, 332- 

3, 362-3 {see Ferdinand 
and' Isabella) 
City of, 299-304, 310, 

327 
Island, 243, 246-50, 277 

{see Long Island, Sao- 
meto) 
Isidore, 325 
Ivory Coast, 216-18 



Jamaica, 256-8, 264, 309, 324, 

337, 351-8, 362 {see Ba- 

beque) 
Jerez, Rodrigo de, 253 
John the Second, 155, 218-23, 

274-6, 279-82 
Josephus, 43, 349 
Juana, Island of, 277 {see 

Cuba) 
Juana, Queen, 364 



374 



INDEX. 



Juba, King, 94 
Juventius, 211 

K 
Kerry, 195-7 {see Icaria) 
Khan, Great, 228, 249, 251-3, 

278 
King's Garden, 257 

L 

Labrador, 158, 175, 195 
Lanzarote, 208 
Lapis-Iazuli, 303, 316 
Ledesma, Pedro, 354, 361 
Leif Ericsson, 163-5, 169-70, 

177, 180 
Leme, Antonio, 211-12 
Leviathan, 43, 320 
Lign-aloes, 250, 257, 277, 

285, 290 
Lisbon, 47, 73-5, 81-2, 85-6, 

102, 104, 134, 154, 223, 

273-4 
Lizards, 92, 245, 250, 284, 305 
Llandra, 281 
Lofoden Islands, 151-2 
Logwood, 328, 337 
London, 59, 147, 149-50 
Long Island, 244, 246-50, 276 

(see Isabella Island, Sao- 

meto) 
Louis the Eleventh, 13, 49-50, 

63-4, 68-70 
Lover's Cape, 265 
Lucian, 109, 119, 120 
Luigi, Scotto, 86 

M 
Macaw, 292, 316 



Machico, 93, 97 

Machin, Robert, 98 

Madeira, 93-103, 114, 206-7 

211, 319 
Magnus, Olaus, 95, 141, 152, 

155. 173, 193 
Magnussen, Professor, 142-4 
Mahogany, 299, 306, 316 
Maino, Giasone, 37-8 
Maize, 162-3, 254-5, 292, 305, 

329 
Maize beer, 323, 329, 350 
Malaguette, 207, 216-17 
Mamee fruit, 298-9, 350 
Manatee, 218, 252, 291, 337 
Manchineel, 289 
Mandeville, 43, 95, 173, 325, 

341 
Mangrove, 216, 323 
Manioc, 254, 292 
Mantegna, Andrea, 77-8 
Marco Polo, 133, 224 
Mares, River, 252-3 
Margarita, 324, 334 
Margarite, 313 
Marie Galante, 289, 327 
Marien, 297 

Marinus, 83-4, 127-31, 133 
Markland, 170, 181 
Maroris, 214-15 
Martinez, Fernando, 134-5 
Martinique, 335 
Martyr, Peter, 44 
Masks, Indian, 252, 262, 285, 

316 
Massagetse, 340 
Mastic, 47, 231, 245, 253, 255 

257 



INDEX. 



375 



Maternus, 128 

Mazer wood, 177 

Mecca, 155 

Medina Celi, Duke of, 226 

Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 218, 

226 
Mendez, Diego, 352-3. 356-7 
Mesurado, 217 
Meta Incognita, 185, 190 
Metellus, 210 
Middleburg, 59 
Mirobolans, 58, 290 
Misery, Mount, 293 
Mona, 294-5, 311 
Moniz, Brigulaga, 90 

Gil, Family of, 91-2 

Isabel, 90-93, 97-8, 100- 

3, 106 

Donna Muliar, 90, 225 

Philippa, 87, 93, 102, 104, 

212 
Monk Rock, 140, 190 
Monkfish, 152 
Monk seal, 95, 218 
Monelone, Nicola di, 27 
Monte Christi, 263, 295, 298-9, 

304 
Montserrat, 292 
Moon, eclipse of, 83, 311, 358 
Moors, 2, 112, 207, 226 
Moxica, Adrian de, 330-1 



Nevis Island, 292 

Nina, The, 227-9, 232, 234-5, 
238, 258, 262, 268, 283 

Nino, Pedro, 318 

Nombre de Dios, 346 

Noronhas, Archbishop of Lis- 
bon, 88 

Martin de, 280 

Pedro de, 219 

North Sea, 142, 150, 163, 184, 
190, 205 

Northeast Passage, 155, 210 

Northwest Passage, 189 

Norway, 141, 146, 161-4, 168-9 
183-4, 192 

O 

Obsidian, 329 

Ocoa Bay, 310 

Odemira, 71, 327 

Ojeda, 300-1, 328, 337 

Olof, Lady, 149, 166 

Orkneys, 126, 164 

Oro, Rio d', 217, 258, 264 

Orinoco, 320, 326 

Ounartok, 194 

Ouro, Rio del, 112, 207 

Ovando, 324, 357-9- 3^1 

Oysters, 304, 323 

Ozama River, 316, 327, 331 



N 
Navidad, La, 262-4, 286-7, 

296, 304 
Nearchus, voyage of, I2g 
Negro, Paolo de, 86 
Nervi, 7, 22 



Palm, 216, 252-3, 257, 276, 

284, 302, 329 
Palmasj 217 
Palos, 3, 90, 157, 227, 282-3, 

312 
Pamir, 128 



37<5 



WDEX. 



Panama, 346 

Paradise, site of, 3, 4, 95, 272 

325 
Paria, 320-5, 336 
Parrot, 73, 242, 245, 248, 252, 

260 
Parrot fish, 246 
Pavia, 31-8, 44-5 
Pearls, 216, 251, 254, 257, 

324 

Pearl Coast, 324, 328 

Pearls, Gulf of, 324 

Peccary, 344 

Pelegro, Antonio, 22 

Pellacano, Francesco, 44 

Pepper, 207, 216-17, 345 

Perestrello, Bartholomew, 87-8, 
92, 97, 100, 104-5 

, Bartholomew the 

younger, 90, 104-5 

Petrel, 233, 237 

Pewter trade, English, 59 

Phoenician voyages, 97, i lo- 
ll 

Piacenza, 7, lo-ii, 87 

Pimento, 305 

Pine woods, 211, 258, 264 

Pines, Isle of, 208 

Pineapple, 292, 356 

Pinning's Judgment, 155 

Pinta, La, 227, 234-5, 237, 
258, 264, 268, 283 

Pinzon, Martin, 227, 234-8, 
250, 254, 264-5 

Pinzon, Vincente, 227 

Pirates, Easterling, 65 

English, 60, 65, 277 

French, 71-2 



Pirates, cont'd. 

Mediterranean, 12, 13, 

19, 51, 57, 62-5, 67-8, 70, 
72, 73-4 

Norwegian, 156 

Pitto family, 26 

Pius the Second, 340 

Pliny, 109, 114-15, 130, 143, 

161 
Porras, Francesco di, 359-60 
Porto Bello, 346, 354 
Porto Rico, 293, 312, 335 
Porto Santo, 87-90, 92-101 

104-6, 206, 319 
Portuguese, Atlantic expedi- 
tions of, 87, loo-i, 156- 
9, 224-5 
colonies of Porto Santo and 

Madeira, 87-90, 92-104 
West African settlements, 

97-100, 106 
trade with Malaguette, 216 
settlement on Gold Coast, 

72, 218-22 
voyages to India and China, 
87 

to the North Sea, 155 

treaties with Spain, 207-8, 

279, 281 
opposition to Columbus, 222, 
271-2, 279-81 
Posidonius, 124 
Postman, the ship, 223-4 
Poti, 20, 47 

Ptolemy's Geography, 33, 43- 
5, 83, 114, 122-3, 130- 
I, 138 
Puerto, Geronimo del, 85-6 



INDEX. 



377 



Pulque, 350 
Pytheas, 132 



Quarto, 22, 25 

Queen's Garden, 306, 337, 355 

Quezzi, 16, 22 

Quibian, Quibio, 349-51 

Quinto, 8, 15-17, 22-5, 28 

Quinsay, 136, 249, 253 

R 
Rabbits, 92, 208 
Rabida, La, gi, 157, 225-7, 

284 
Rainless zone, 293 
Ravenna, geographer, 43-4 
Rays and skates, 152-3, 294, 

310, 342 
Redonda Island, 292 
Reed sparrow, 234 
Remora, 307 
Rene of Provence, 46, 55-6, 

68-9 
Retreta, 347 
Rhipsean Hills, 161-3 
Rhubarb, 20, 263 
Rincon, Antonio del, 76 
Roldan,. 327-31, 336 
Romano Pane, 214-15 
Rorqual, 151, 175 
Rosato, Ambrosio, 40 
Rum Cay, 277 {see Guan- 

ima) 



Saama, Factory of, 218 
Sabaeans, 39-40 



Saffron, 58 

Salamanca, 226 

Salineri, 24 

Salmon, 170, 182, 259 

Saltes, 90, 282 

Samana, 215, 266, 295 

San Antonio, monastery, 280 

San Domingo, town, 91, 327, 
330-2, 336, 358, 361-2 

San Lucar, 319, 321, 362 

San Pietro, island, 56 

San Remo, 17 

San Salvador, 103, 240-r, 276- 
7 (see Guanahani, Wat- 
ling's Island) 

San Stefano, abbey, 18-21 

Sanchez, 361 

Santa Clara de Moguer, 268, 
284 

Santa Cruz, 293, 335 

Santa Fe, 227 

Santa Gloria, bay, 356, 358-61 

Santa Maria, island, 271-3 

port, 268 

Santa Maria, ship, 227 

Santa Maria la Antigua, churchy 

293. 364 
of Guadaloupe, 

church, 268, 284 
of Loretto, church, 

268 

of La Rabida, 284 

of Redonda, 292 

Santiago, 209 

Saometo, 244, 246-50, 277 

(see Isabella Island, Long 

Island) 
Sargasso Sea, 108, 231 



378 



INDEX. 



Sagres, Cape, 113 

Savona, 6, 7, 17, 26-g, 47-8, 52 

Scammony, 58, 303 

Scandinavian Voyages to Green- 
land, 182, 183, 205 

to Vinland, 162-6, 

169-81 

intercourse with America, 

191 

Scillacio, 39-41, loi, 120 

Scio, 47, 58 

Scotland, 122, 140, X98-200 

Scotus, 325 

Sea cock, fish, 246 

Seals, 95, 182, 218 

Segovia, 363 

Seneca, 125, 188 

Senegambia, 97-9, 113, 207, 
212, 216 

Serpent's Mouth, 320 

Sertorius, 94 

Service tree, 183 

Seven Cities, 99, 107, 115, 159 

Seville, 226, 231, 237-8, 282, 
328, 334, 362 

Sforza, Francesco, 62-3 

Sforza Ludovico, 38 

Sherbro River, 113 

Shetland, 140, 190-2, 195-6 

Sicily, 20, 47, 58-9, loi, 251 

Sierra Leone, io3 

Sinclair, Henry, 190-1, 193, 
196-8, 204-5 

Sixareens, 199 

Skalholt, 144 

Skraelings, 165, 175, 184 

Snorri Sturlusson, 167 

Socotra, 20, 58 



Southampton, 19, 57, 61, 65 

Spinola, Baptista, 86 

Spice trade, 16, 20, 135, 216, 

255, 263, 285, 303-4, 316 
Spitzbergen, 156, 189 
St. Amaro, 233 
St. Ambrose, 325 
St. Augustine, 42 
St. Brandan, 193, 212 
St. Christopher's, island, 293 
St. Elmo's Fire, 288 
St. Elmo Cape, 266 
St. George's Bank, 18, 30 
St. George Fort, 139, 212, 

2ig-2o, 223, 279 
St. Jerome, 43, 95 
St. John's, island, 293, 335 
St. Martin's, island, 293 
St. Michael's, 272 
St. Nicholas, church, 182 

harbor, 259 

St. Thomas, church, 192, 194 

fort of, 302-3, 313 

island, 207 

St. Vincent, Cape, 12, 56-7, 

71-3, 113, 127, 282, 317- 

Statins Sebosus, 115 

Stockfish, 140, 149, 192 

Stone axes, 291, 329 

Stone tower in Pamir, 128 

Strabo, 124, 346 

Strabus, 325 

Sugar trade, 58, 92, 100-2, 

208 
Sunfish, 337 
Sweyn of Denmark, 162 
Swords, palm wood, 329 



INDEX. 



379 



Tacitus, 126 

Tartary, 156-8 
Teive, Diogo de, 157 
Teneriffe, 208-g, 229, 259, 278 
Terebinth, 58 
Terra Rossa, 15, 24 
Theophilus, 128 
Thingore, 164, 168 
Thorfinn Karlsefne, 175-83 
Thorleif Bjornsson, 149-50 
Thorshavn, 140, 193, 205 
Thorstein, son of Eric the Red, 

174-5 
Thorwald, 172, 179, 181 
Three Points, Cape, 220 
Thule, 5, 43, 122, 123, 126, 

131-2, i38-9> 143, 154 
Tiburon, Cape, 310 
Tides, 138, 188, 205, 282 
Tiflis, 20 
Tin, 60, 118, 172 
Titianus, Itinerary of, 128 
Tobacco, 242, 256 
Tobazo, Antonio, 85 
Torfoeus, 165 
Torres, Antonio de, 155 
Torres, Luis de, 253 
Torriano, 38 
Tortuga, 304 

Toscanelli, 107, 134-7, 234 
Triana, Roderigo de, 239 
Trinidad, 320-2 
Tristan, Diego, 352 
Tropic birds, 102, 232-5 
Tunis, 56 
Tunnies, 109, 232, 234, 266- 

7 



Turtle, 209, 284, 291, 307-8, 

350 
Turtledove, 234 
Tyre, trade of, 19-20 

U 
Ufizzi Gallery, Florence, 77-81 
Ulmo, Fernand d', 159 



Valcalda, 17, 28 

Valladolid, 364 

Vasco da Gama, 87 

Vaz, Tristram, 93, 97 

Vazo, Antonio, 85 

Vega, 298-9, 313, 327, 331 

Velasco, Pedro de, 158 

Velasquez, Pedro, 157 

Venezuela, 324 

Venice, 12, 13, 52, 63-4, 345 

trade of, 57-9, 101-2 

Veragua, 43, 339, 345-6, 349 
Vespucci, Amerigo, 328 
Verde, Cape, 100, 113-15, 208, 

220 
Verga, Cape, 210 
Villa, Pedro de, 268 
Villafranca, 280 
Vincenti, Martin, 105 
Vines, 170, 176, 181, 293, 303 
Vinland, 160, 162-5,167, 175-7, 

180, 183-5, 191. 193, 204 
Virgin Isles, 293 
Visconti, family, 88 
Viverro, 50, 52 
Volcanoes, 189-94, 209-12, 229 

W 

Walkendorf, Archbishop, 185 



38o 



INDEX. 



Warwick, the King-niaker,65-7o 
Watling's Island, 240-2 (see 
Guanahani and San Sal- 
vador) 
Wells, Isle of, 337 
Westmann Isles, 132, 148 
Whale, 103, 151, 175, 180, 233, 

246 
Whiteman's Land, 173, 181 
White Sea, 156, 161, 194 
Wididale, 168 
Wine trade, 92, loi 
Witnesses' Islands, 324 
Woman's Island, 335 
Wool trade, English, 20, , 58- 
60, 149 



X 

Xaragua, 299, 327, 332, 357 



Yams, 216 

339 
Yarmouth, 147 
Yucatan, 115, 338 
Yucca, 254, 292 



Zabrae, 129 
Zacton, 135 
Zarco, 93, 96, 97-9 
Zeni, voyages of, 18 
200, 204 



254, 292, 309, 



5-93, 195- 







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